Carlson Makes a Splash at Adaptive Live 2015

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Carlson-Adaptive-Live-500-560Adaptive Live 2015, the annual user conference of Adaptive Insights, was held last week in San Jose, California and drew a record crowd of more than 1,200 attendees. This year, Carlson Management Consulting was a Gold Sponsor and brought eight members of our team to attend our booth and learn from the thought leadership and new product sessions. It was great meeting with many of our existing customers as well as new folks looking to gain even more value out of their Adaptive investments. Many thanks to the people who came by our booth to have a chat and especially those who took advantage of our free system assessments and product demos. Read more

6 Tips for a Successful Cloud CPM Evaluation

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Are you considering replacing your legacy on-premise budgeting system for a cloud corporate performance management solution? If so, you are in good company as a recent Adaptive Insights survey of 300 finance professionals indicated that 86% want to leave their legacy system behind. Once you’ve made the decision to start looking around, the system evaluation sets the stage for a successful project and long-term benefits to the organization. However, there are several points you should take note of to ensure a thorough evaluation. In this post, we will review key priorities for embarking down this path.

Carlson on KPIs-of-High-Performance-Finance

To receive maximum benefits, make sure the solution is ‘born of the cloud’.

1. Cloud or Pseudo-Cloud:  When you develop your evaluation criteria or begin engaging vendors, make sure their solution is truly a multi-tenant, cloud-based architecture that uses current technology. Many vendors today state in their marketing collateral that they offer cloud software, which is understandable considering the increased popularity of cloud solutions. However, you need to validate that their marketing aligns with the facts as many vendors have taken their legacy technology stack and updated with a “cloud” veneer. One way to determine whether their solution was “born of the cloud” is to review a diagram of their systems architecture. If it is overly complex with some surprising layers of technology, it’s probably not truly a cloud solution. Next, you should ask them to stage up a trial instance for your company. If they can’t deploy a trial instance in a few days, they probably have a lot of older wiring behind the scenes that they’re not telling you about. That also gives you an opportunity to play around with the solution and get a sense for usability and key features. One hallmark of cloud solutions that differentiates them from their legacy counterparts is ease-of-use. Also ask about their release schedule. Pseudo-cloud solutions typically have multiple versions running at any given time which slows the ability to roll out new features.

Read more

Carlson at Adaptive Roadshow for Finance Best Practices

Join Carlson for Lessons Over Lunch: Data-Driven Decision Making for Biotech & Pharma

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Carlson at Adaptive Roadshow for Finance Best PracticesPlease join Kevin O’Brien, VP of Carlson Management Consulting, and Adaptive Insights for an informative luncheon tailored to finance professionals in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday, April 14th at the Bridgewater Marriott in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Find out how leading organizations, like Aegerion, Pacira, and Gentiva, leverage technology to streamline FP&A processes to drive growth, reduce cost, and ultimately make better decisions.

At this complimentary luncheon, you’ll hear about:

  • Key metrics for biotech and pharma, their underlying drivers and why they matter
  • The importance of real-time visibility into performance and KPIs
  • Using analytics and dashboards to communicate performance

In addition to learning finance and systems “best practices”, attendees will also receive two CPE credits. To attend this event, please fill out the registration form.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Get Ready for Adaptive Live 2015!

/0 Comments/in , /by

Carlson-at-Adaptive-Live-2015Adaptive Live 2015 is almost upon us!  Thousands of Adaptive end users will be flocking to San Jose from April 20-23 for information-packed speaker sessions, keynotes and workshops.  Of course, Carlson will be there prominently with several of our team members. If you are attending Adaptive Live, please join us for the following:

Ethan Carlson’s presentation entitled Rethinking Performance Management on Wednesday, April 23rd from 11:45 to 12:30pm.

Session Summary

Expand your role as a leader and change driver, by partnering more effectively with other business managers and teams, and helping to measure performance against corporate goals.  In this session, we will examine opportunities where metrics can be used to drive performance and accountability, and discuss how CPM can be implemented in novel ways to build a world-class organization, from alignment and stakeholder involvement, to team performance, employee incentives and compensation planning. Read more