Example: Workstations in a Typical Corporate Environment

Introduction

In a typical corporation, there are many different ways that Financial Analyzer can be configured and utilized. The following sections describe several divisions of a fictitious corporation and how they each use Financial Analyzer.

Consulting division

In the consulting division, regional Consulting Managers use Budget workstations that report into the Sub Administrator workstation of the Consulting VP. Consulting Managers can:

• Edit the expense and revenue line items of their region.

• View the expense and revenue line items of other regional Consulting Managers. This facilitates Consulting Managers inputting their budget and forecast numbers based on trends in their particular regions.

• Perform what-if analysis to evaluate the potential performance based on the probability of the variable environment factors occurring.

• Augment their personal database by adding financial and personnel data which is not present in the data set distributed to them from the Administrator (which is sourced primarily from Oracle General Ledger).

When budgets or forecasts are completed, Consulting Managers submit their final numbers to the Consulting VP who reviews them and requests revisions if necessary. The Consulting VP may also make edits to the shared data which become the final budget. The lower level Budget workstations Consulting Managers then refresh their personal databases to get the finalized figures. The Consulting VP submits final summary consulting P&L budgets and forecasts to a Senior Financial Analyst in Corporate Finance who runs the Super administrator workstation.

The following illustration shows the Consulting Division.

Manufacturing

In the manufacturing environment, Product Managers:

• Follow an organization similar to the Consulting Managers, except that what they can view and edit is determined by their product responsibilities rather than by their geographic region.

• Utilize Financial Analyzer Budget workstations to budget and forecast and perform in-depth analyses such as product profitability, customer profitability, trend analysis, what-if analysis, and production forecasting.

• Submit forecasts and budgets to the Production VP or directly to a Financial Analyst in Corporate Finance.

Some product managers are provided with Analyst workstations to keep current on company performance and to support production line decisions. These Analyst workstation users view the historic, budget, and current forecast data to properly plan and execute to the budget/forecast. Their view of the data is also very product-focused. They do not need to perform analysis or provide budget or forecast data. They use the finalized corporate data for ongoing decision making and planning; therefore, the functionality of the Analyst workstation suits their needs.

The following illustration shows the manufacturing division.

Corporate finance

In general, all Manufacturing and Consulting related workstations report directly to the Super administrator workstation in Corporate Finance. Other Financial Analyzer users in the Corporate Finance Department are either Budget or Analyst workstations, all of which report to the Super administrator workstation.

A Senior Financial Analyst or a number of Senior Financial Analysts are responsible for the collection of budget and forecast data throughout the organization. If there are a number of these positions, they act as Administrator workstations which then report to a Super administrator workstation within the Corporate Finance Department. The Senior and Junior Financial Analysts all require analysis and modeling capabilities to review and possibly modify the information coming in from other areas of the organization.

Other specialists in the Corporate Finance Department can require either the Budget or Analyst workstation functionality:

• The CFO normally requires only Analyst workstation functionality

• Budget or Forecast Analysts who concentrate primarily on forward trends and potential changes in the projected performance path require Budget workstations

The Super administrator resides in the Corporate Finance Department and the number of Sub administrator workstations it supports depends on whether data from other areas of the organization is submitted to one or many workstations within the Corporate Finance department.

The following illustration shows Corporate Finance.