1. Using excel as an enterprise business platform
Best practices and Technologies to “super-charge” Excel
Presented by Rishi Grover
President, Vena Solutions
® Copyright VenaTM

2. Rishi grover President & SVP Solutions Engineering
As President, Rishi is responsible for the day-to-day operations and continued success of client implementations at Vena.
Rishi has helped many Fortune 500 companies re-engineer and optimize their Excel-based financial processes including:
Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting
Financial Close
Financial Reporting and Analysis
Regulatory Reporting and Disclosure Management

3. Agenda Vena Solutions Introduction
Overview of Excel-centric Enterprise Applications
Why do we use Excel in the first place?
What’s missing?
What Are Our Options?
The Ideal Excel Platform Solution
Benefits of an Automated Excel Platform
Vena Technology Overview
Excel Automation Demonstration

4. Vena. The way you think.
Created to make businesses work smarter, Vena uses a surprisingly convenient approach to simplify complex enterprise processes.

5. Overview of excel-centric enterprise applications

6. Overview of excel-centric enterprise applications

7. Why do we use excel for enterprise applications?
Pros:
High user adoption
Highly configurable
Flexible
Strong modeling
Powerful calculations
Strong data tables
More Pros:
Conditional formatting
Icon sets
Spark lines/trend icons
Top X rules
Advanced charting
Pivot tables and Power BI
Sorting & filtering

8. Why do we use excel for enterprise applications?

9. COMMON MANUAL EXCEL TASKS
Repeated & interrelated processes
COMMUNICATION
DATA COLLECTION & VALIDATION
CONSOLIDATION
REVIEW & APPROVAL
REPORTING & ANALYSIS
Long Term Planning
Budgeting, Forecasting
Sales Planning
Management Reporting
Regulatory Reporting
Disclosure Note Collection
Account Reconciliation
Financial Consolidation
Tax Provisioning
HR Planning
Project Management
Operational Planning
Any Excel-intensive process      
ENTERPRISE PROCESSES       

10. Manual enterprise excel process
Activity
Review and Approval
Cons:
G/L
Data integrity issues
Manually
extract data
& re-key into
spreadsheets
No source system integration
Manual consolidations
Sub-Ledgers
Lack of audit-ability
No process management
Other Systems
Numerous s and versions of each document
Source Data
® Copyright Vena Solutions Inc.

11. Overview of excel automation options

12. What are our options? Spreadsheet Environment
“Replace Excel” Application Environment
Flexible
Controlled
“Excel-like
Functionality”
“Excel-like Look &
Feel”
Budgeting
Applications
Financial Close
Applications
Reporting
Applications
Consolidation
Applications
Cons:
Data integrity issues
No source system integration
Manual consolidations
Lack of audit-ability
No process management
Pros:
Flexible
Strong modeling
Powerful calculations
Rich presentation
High user adoption
Pros:
Controlled environment
High data integrity
Database centric
Workflow management
Auditable
Cons:
Takes you away from spreadsheets
Rigid, lack of flexibility
IT/consulting intensive
High cost of ownership

13. What are our options?
Spreadsheet Environment
“Replace Excel” Application Environment
Flexible
Controlled
81% of companies that have a performance management solution…supplement it with spreadsheets.
Pulse Survey
“Excel-like
Functionality”
“Excel-like Look &
Feel”
Budgeting
Applications
Financial Close
Applications
Reporting
Applications
Consolidation
Applications
Cons:
Data integrity issues
No source system integration
Manual consolidations
Lack of audit-ability
No process management
Pros:
Flexible
Strong modeling
Powerful calculations
Rich presentation
High user adoption
Pros:
Controlled environment
High data integrity
Database centric
Workflow management
Auditable
Cons:
Takes you away from spreadsheets
Rigid, lack of flexibility
IT/consulting intensive
High cost of ownership

14. ® Copyright Vena Solutions Inc.
The vena approach
G/L
Sub-Ledgers
Other Systems
Source Data
Vena Database
Results
Collaboration
Complete visibility
Highly efficient process
Reduced risk of errors
Automatic rollover
to next period
Automated
Data
Extraction
• Leverage Excel > Template-ize
• Source System Integration
• Business Rules & Audit Trail
• Reporting & Analytics
• Process Automation & Workflow
• Electronic Sign-off
• Status Dashboard
• Notifications
® Copyright Vena Solutions Inc.

15. Benefits of an excel automation platform
Clarity FSR Reduces the Risks
Benefits of an excel automation platform
Data Integrity 1
Accelerated Cycle Times 2
Feature
Benefit
Integration to source data
Latest, accurate data
Business Rules
Numbers always tie-out
Workflow
Review & electronic sign-off
Feature
Benefit
Process Automation & Rollover
Automate user assignments and workflow
Integration to source data
No need to re-key data
Increased confidence in the results
Start reviewing the data sooner
Feature
Benefit
Security to view or edit data
Users only see the data they are supposed to see
Workflow controls access throughout the process
Users only see data when they are allowed to see it
Feature
Benefit
Compliance Checklists
To ensure that the right steps are being followed
Audit Trail
To track who did what, and when they did it
Access to information is controlled
Compliance information always available
Security & Collaboration 3
Control & Auditing 4
® Copyright Vena Solutions Inc.

16. Quick demo: vena for excel automation
Ms-excel supercharged!

17. Thank you!