1. Oklahoma City Thunder – Prophix story
Operating since: 2008
Head office: Oklahoma City, OK
Annual revenue: > $100 million
Number of employees: 175
G/L or ERP: Microsoft Dynamics GP
Company website:
Company background:
Formerly the Seattle SuperSonics, The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball franchise based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Their home court is Chesapeake Energy Arena. The Thunder is the only team in the major professional North American sports leagues based in the state of Oklahoma.
Business problems that led to evaluating CPM, adopting Prophix:
(See separate notes from interview with the customer.)
The OKC Thunder have been a customer since they were the Seattle Supersonics all the way back in For years they had the software, but didn’t use it more than once per year.
IT led the decision making process. Evaluated company needs. They wanted something SQL-based that could plug into Microsoft Dynamics GP, their general ledger, and the ADP payroll system. “We’re heavy SharePoint users and that integration will help, too. We track internal workflow via SharePoint.”
They upgraded to PROPHIX 10 in Q (and agreed to provide a case study), but the software was stuck in HR.
The Thunder wanted to build their personnel plans (plus their budgets) using Prophix, but couldn’t get used to Prophix.

2. Oklahoma City Thunder – Prophix story
Business problems that led to evaluating CPM, adopting Prophix:
CFO did all of the budgeting in spreadsheets. Used SharePoint as a document housing system to collect department budgets. Looked into market. Came back to Prophix. Using Workflow Manager. “Love the ability to automate notifications to budget owners and directors, and track their inputs.”
Really liked other features, too: “Security features important. Based on user level, control access and protect valuable information. Director TV, Radio, and Broadcasting, for instance, receives prompts from Workflow Manager to simply input data for his area of oversight. He only sees what’s approved and relevant for him.”
Overall, they didn’t really adopt Prophix, however.
They read the Bucks story and loved it.
In the summer of 2014, they decided to give us another chance. Rather than canceling maintenance, they bought services and we re-implemented Detailed Planning Manager (DPM) for personnel planning. They also used extra time for Parenty Lau (Sr. Business Analyst) to train Controller Stacey Blomstrom.
Benefits:
2014 (building the 2015 budget) represents the first iteration of their revised processes with Prophix.
Personnel planning: personnel represents the franchise’s largest expense by far.
Planning for players: personnel expenses modeled, including salaries and taxes. Taxes for players in 48 states.
Players may not be in the system by name. Might be lumped in the system together as 15 employees together.
Planning for rank and file employees: import ADP data directly into Prophix. Budgeting and planning for salaried front office employees and game night staff. Some staff work only on game nights.
Future plans:
Significant room for growth in terms of reporting in the league’s mandated format, creative business modeling, personnel modeling for player salaries (utilizing the salary’s predictive function), considering the league’s changing salary cap, luxury tax, etc. See The Milwaukee Bucks case study as an example.
The potential goes well beyond that.

3. Supporting data: Life cycle Industry (choose all that apply)
☐ New implementation
Implementation date: ________________
☐ Preexisting customer
Original implementation date: ________________
☐ Existing customer, upgrading YES, in July of 2014
Original implementation date: Q1 2002
Industry (choose all that apply)
☐ Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
☐ Professional services
☐ Financial services
☐ Retail
☐ Wholesale and distribution
☐ Telecommunications
☐ Healthcare
☐ Utilities
☐ Education
☐ Architecture, engineering, and construction
☐ Life science
☐ Transportation and logistics
☐ Manufacturing
☐ High tech
☐ Media and entertainment YES
☐ Government
☐ Non-profit

4. Supporting data: Solutions built Capabilities used ☐ Budgeting YES
☐ Automation YES
☐ Forecasting
☐ Prophix Mobile
☐ Reporting YES
☐ Data integration YES
☐ Strategic planning
☐ Business modeling YES
☐ Financial consolidation
☐ Microsoft platform integration YES
☐ Analysis YES
☐ Role-based security YES
☐ Profitability analysis
☐ Collaboration YES
☐ Personnel planning YES
☐ Flexible deployment
☐ Project planning
☐ Ad hoc reporting and visualization YES
☐ Revenue planning
☐ Capital expenditures planning
☐ Reporting and analytics
(dashboards and scorecards)