Movember Foundation escapes the spreadsheet shackles with Board

Board International, the world’s leading supplier of decision-making software, today announced that Movember Foundation, the innovative charity focused on improving the health of men, has deployed the Board performance management software platform to support its ongoing global growth.

The new platform replaces a complex mix of spreadsheets and manual processes that had evolved as the organisation grew during the past 14 years. Movember is now active in 21 countries and has raised more than $770 million to help fund some 1200 different health-related projects.

Simone Corner, Commercial Manager, Movember, said,

"We could clearly see Board had the capabilities we were seeking. We were particularly attracted by the way in which it essentially provided a blank canvas that could be adjusted to meet our specific requirements."

Corner said the time required to complete the annual budgeting process has been reduced significantly while Board also allows data from Movember's console application, which tracks donor activity, to be easily combined with data from the organisation's NetSuite ERP system.

An evolving challenge

As Movember grew its activities into an increasing number of countries, the task of keeping track of finances had become complex. Donations and other sources of revenue from multiple locations and countries needed to be pulled together for processing and reporting.

"We were doing everything in Excel spreadsheets," said Corner. "While this had worked when we were small, as we grew it had become ever more unwieldy. The last time I created a budget, it involved pulling together more than 500 different worksheets for consolidation."

A decision was made to find an alternative system for handling the tasks of financial budgeting, reporting and forecasting. Key requirements included flexibility, adaptability and the capability to deal with a dispersed organisation working with multiple different currencies.  After examining a number of options, a decision was made in June 2016 to deploy Board.

Improved visibility

With Board now in place, Corner said Movember now has "one source of truth" that ensures reports provided to senior managers are based on the most up-to-date data available. Board has also removed the chance of errors occurring due to mistakes made through incorrect spreadsheet formats or linkages.

"Board gives us what is essentially a real-time view into our operations around the world," she said. "This is something that was simply impossible to achieve when we relied on spreadsheets and manual processing."

Working with Board, the Movember team configured the cloud-based platform so it could provide version control and workflow capabilities. Budgeting and forecasting components were also added, together with a foreign exchange conversion tool.

Streamlined processing

Corner said Board has significantly improved the way in which data is collected from each country and combined to create financial reports.

"We work in a wide range of countries and deal with multiple currencies and exchange rates, but everything is combined and converted into Australian dollars for reporting," says Corner.

Corner said finance managers in each global location can input their details directly into the Board platform and make them available "at the push of a button". The FX tool handles all currency conversions, further streamlining the process.

"We can now also easily combine different legal entities using Board which saves a lot of manual processing. Overall, the difference it has made to our day-to-day operations has been very significant."

Corner said Board will continue to provide valuable support to Movember as the organisation evolves and grows in the future.

About Board International:

Board is the #1 decision-making platform for organisations of any size. Founded in 1994, Board International has enabled more than 3000 companies worldwide to rapidly deploy Business Intelligence, Corporate Performance Management and Predictive Analytics applications on a single unified and programming-free platform. The Board platform allows companies to achieve a single, accurate and complete view of business information and a full control of performance across the entire organisation, from strategic formulation down to operational execution.

Thanks to its programming-free toolkit approach, global enterprises such as H&M, KPMG, DHL, Mitsubishi, NEC, Puma, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Toyota have rapidly deployed end-to end decision-making applications in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions. Headquartered in Chiasso, Switzerland, and Boston, MA, Board International has 21 offices around the world and a global reseller network. Board has been implemented in over 100 countries.