SCT Logistics was doing budgeting, forecasting and reporting on spreadsheets. They wanted to improve the approach to achieve consistent planning across locations, streamline the process, and enable quicker data-backed decisions. Learn how they did this with Workday Adaptive Planning.

SCT Logistics is Australia’s largest private integrated logistics company. They offer a wide range of multi-modal transport and logistics services, including rail and road linehaul, and dry and refrigerated transport. SCT has been operating for more than 50 years and has depots located in every major capital city as well as several regional locations.

Challenge: A spreadsheet-based process

SCT was budgeting, forecasting and reporting on spreadsheets. It was a time consuming and clunky process that they wanted to improve. The goals they wanted to achieve included:

• Undertaking more regular forecasting
• Reducing the time taken on the consolidation of numbers
• Improved reporting and analysis
• Consistent approach in planning across locations
• Moving to a more streamlined process

Solution: An uplift in FP&A capabilities

To achieve their goals, SCT evaluated several tools and ultimately decided on Workday Adaptive Planning, with QMetrix as their implementation partner. During the evaluation process, QMetrix undertook a Proof of Concept which gave SCT the confidence that Adaptive Planning could meet their business needs.

Streamlined budgets and more efficient reporting

The first year SCT used Adaptive Planning, it was focused on the initial implementation and go-live. QMetrix worked with them to quickly troubleshoot and solve challenges as they arose, and to help with change management.

Adrian Pasa, Group Finance & Commercial Manager at SCT says, “In the first year, we were able to trim the budget and forecast process by two weeks from start to finish. In the second year, we were able to streamline the process further. This enabled the team to focus on other areas such as profit improvement and being better business partners as opposed to doing manual processes.”

Consistency and an integrated view of the business

SCT operates nine branches across Australia and while each location is operationally similar, finance interpretations varied, and this often led to different calculation methods between each branch.

Adaptive Planning now allows each of these individual parts of the business to integrate. The financial implications of a piece of freight moving from one place to another can flow through the system and into the respective areas of the budget in a seamless manner.

SCT is a vertically integrated business that owns and operates the trains and is also responsible for the freight forwarding process.

Adaptive Planning has been crucial in linking all business areas to provide a top level view for executives to digest and make timely data-backed decisions. As an example, the CEO has a dashboard which measures performance of all locations in a consistent manner and how freight is tracking from one side of the country to the other.

Real time updates which flow through seamlessly

As Adaptive Planning is integrated with the data warehouse, SCT can effectively produce reports and KPIs much faster and in accordance with their reporting timeframes and timetables. This data then forms the basis of the budget and forecast for the coming year as the actual data prepopulates the coming forecast.

Because the process is much simpler and more straightforward, they have the ability to forecast on a more regular basis – a handy capability especially in volatile economic times. When there is a change in the operating environment or they win a new customer, these impacts can be easily added to the forecast.

Adrian also appreciates that Adaptive Planning is easy to use. He says, “As accountants and finance people, we all love Excel. Adaptive Planning has the same look and feel as Excel, and the ability to write and extract reports as required is also beneficial. We now have more analytical ability to delve deeper into the business and its financial performance.”

Furthermore, using Adaptive Planning has been an ever evolving journey for SCT, as they continually discover many useful features of the platform which can improve their Financial Planning and Analysis processes.

On working with QMetrix

SCT have been partnering with QMetrix for several years now, first on an initial phase to deliver key components, then on later phases to build further capability, ensuring they make the most out of their technology investment.

Adrian says, “The QMetrix team know the Adaptive Planning tool very well and there was no problem they weren’t able to deal with. They have also been able to provide other solutions in areas outside of Adaptive Planning that our business may require in the future.”

Impact for SCT Logistics

• Consistent processes across nine locations, simplifying consolidation
• An integrated view of the business, from top to bottom and across depots and departments
• A streamlined budgeting and forecasting process that is continually refined and improved
• More efficient reporting, and the ability to run more regular forecasts
• Real time updates and numbers which flow through seamlessly, saving time and effort, and allowing quicker data-backed decision making