good morning.
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“People are keeping their cars longer, which is good for our business as it continues to grow,” said Matt Castonguay, senior vice president of finance, analytics and supply chain at Team Car Care. sir tells me
At Gartner’s CFO and Finance Executive Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Thursday, I spoke with Castingeye about the company’s digital transformation efforts in financial planning and analytics (FP&A). Three years ago, when he joined Team Car Care during the supply chain crisis caused by the pandemic, demand for car maintenance and repairs began to soar. FP&A and accounting were doing a lot of manual work and spreadsheets, he said. Team Car Care is the largest franchise of Jiffy Lube stores. The team supports his more than 500 Jiffy Lube dealerships in 26 states.
So the company set out to modernize how it handles financial workflows using automation and machine learning. “The first thing we’re trying to figure out is how many guests will come to Jiffy Lube,” says Castingeye. “To get to that point, you really need accuracy in guest counts, not just for the month.” But only for the day. ”
According to Castonguay, the FP&A team uses Workday Adaptive Planning, which has machine learning models with predictive capabilities built into the platform. (Workday sponsors his CFO Daily.) “This allows us to base our forecast proposals on several years of historical data, based on weather data obtained from NASA, and adjust them for the seasons.” can.”
why? “Believe it or not, people act differently when it comes to oil changes depending on whether it’s snowing or raining,” he said.
Before using the platform, “it took me four months of work, 100 iterations of the spreadsheet, to come up with the details of the forecast,” he said. “Now I can read the predictions within minutes.”
But progress always comes with change. Once AI and machine learning perform all these functions, what will be the core goals of FP&A professionals?They are playing a larger and larger role in his CFO’s office, and they are expected to grow company-wide in the coming years. Data strategy is predicted to become a key responsibility.
“My expectation is that FP&A requires you to be a data scientist,” Castonguay said. But to do that, “you don’t have to say, ‘Okay, we need to completely change who we’re hiring on the FP&A team,'” he says. “This means that when people join the company, they have to go through a little different, more technical training.”
Gartner Senior Director and Analyst Matthew Mowrey said during Thursday’s conference that many companies are running into roadblocks in adopting technology for FP&A. “I have several clients who classify their FP&A technology ambitions as risky projects,” Morley says.
He shared findings on a “Strategic Roadmap for FP&A Technology,” which identifies three key elements for a successful plan.
1. Build a good data model: “We are now atrophying and dying out these data models. It’s because we’re lifting and transitioning to things,” Morley said.
2. Focus on AI: Let’s start experimenting with AI, he said. Existing technology doesn’t already have it built in, so you can do this with low risk. “It’s not perfect,” Morley said. “Are you evolving? Yes.”
3. Pay attention to governance: “We need to consider how feasible these projects are,” he said. “And if they are not feasible, what will be feasible in the future? .”
Have a nice weekend. see you on monday.
Cheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
This article originally appeared on Fortune.com
Details from Fortune:
5 Side Jobs That Could Earn $20,000+ A Year While Working From Home
Want to earn extra cash?Currently APY for this CD is 5.15%
Buy a house?See how much you can save here
This is how much you need to earn per year to comfortably buy a $600,000 house
