What are the cost savings and business benefits enabled by Workday Adaptive Planning? There’s no doubt investing in software can cost your organisation a lot of money. Getting leadership on board to invest is often tricky, but what if you had a framework to assess how much your organisation would ultimately save over time thanks to implementing a proper planning solution?

One of the leading planning solutions in the market is Workday Adaptive Planning. They have over 7,000 customers worldwide and have been recognised as a 2023 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice for Financial Planning Software.

Forrester Research interviewed five representatives with experience using Workday Adaptive Planning to better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this type of investment. Here are some key statistics they found after organisations implemented Workday Adaptive Planning:

1. Improved Financial Planning & Analysis productivity by up to 20%
2. Increased business manager productivity related to planning activities by up to 12%
3. Cost optimisation worth $2 million over three years

Beyond the monetary value saved, the study found that organisations reaped other unquantifiable benefits that provided value such as:

• Better data quality – by providing a single source of truth, Workday Adaptive Planning reduced the manual effort required to consolidate and analyse data, significantly reducing errors.

• Improved trust in FP&A function – thanks to better data quality, finance teams were able to provide more accurate analysis and better business insights.

• Greater employee satisfaction – less time spent on data entry and manual processes freed up time for employees to work on more value-add projects.

• Informed, faster decision making – thanks to enhanced data quality and the ability to scenario model, businesses were able to make faster and better-informed decisions.

In the whitepaper, Forrester breaks down the benefits and financial impact organisations have from investing in Workday Adaptive Planning over three years, including detailed metrics on:

• Subscription, implementation and training costs
• Ongoing management and optimisation costs
• Productivity improvements for business, finance and IT managers

The study found that an organisation can experience a return on investment (ROI) of around 249% in just 3 years. Understanding the Return on Investment (ROI) equation and how it can support a compelling business case is an important step in pushing this agenda with the Board, CEO or key stakeholders.