Scott Soukup 0:00:01.3

 

Ciena is a provider of data networking gear. We provide data networking capabilities to all the telecoms, all the data centers, all the cloud providers, and we provide hardware, software, and services.

 

Moderator 0:00:16.7

 

What would you say your mission is as a company?

 

Scott Soukup 0:00:16.7

 

Well, our mission is to actually try, in the words of our CEO, to bring humanity to the networking space. We try to make sure that everyone who wants to connect can connect, so whether you're on a mobile device, whether it's a computer, our job is to move data and bits as fast as we can and as securely as we can.

 

Moderator 0:00:43.1

 

Nice. What challenges would you say that your company and industry face today, especially those related to planning and performance?

 

Scott Soukup 0:00:52.3

 

Well, the two letters, AI, is I think the big one.

 

Moderator 0:00:55.2

 

Oh, sorry, can I just stop you there? It's the second time I haven't done this. You won't hear me in the interview.

 

Scott Soukup 0:01:01.0

 

Oh, that's fine.

 

Moderator 0:01:01.0

 

Could you just put a little bit of context to it?

 

Scott Soukup 0:01:03.1

 

Okay.

 

Moderator 0:01:03.9

 

So, challenges that we face today, just to put it, yes.

 

Scott Soukup 0:01:07.5

 

Perfect. Yes, okay. Perfect.

 

Moderator 0:01:08.7

 

I can re-prompt you, as well.

 

Scott Soukup 0:01:09.6

 

That's all right. Our biggest challenge, I think, going forward, I'll put two letters, is AI. We've seen a lot of growth there in the data center, in the back of the data center. You've seen all the growth with Nvidia and trying to keep up with the new AI, plans and visions that are coming to the market. Once that AI moves to the front of the data center and starts moving between data centers, that's where our demand is expected to skyrocket, and so being able to plan for any changes in that, understand our customer behavior, the different buying patterns is going to be very critical to us, and that's going to be one of the challenges we have to face.

 

Moderator 0:01:48.7

 

Nice. You've got this. Why are accurate, rapid, and data-informed decisions valuable to you and the company?

 

Scott Soukup 0:02:01.6

 

Well, I guess being accurate and being as fast as possible, we have to understand our market first. I'll back up for a second. We expect our market to change very dynamically and very quickly, and the old ways of planning that we've been doing for the past 20 years are just not going to be able to keep up with that. So being able to detect anomalies, being able to detect changes in a plan, and being able to analyze and respond to them quickly is going to allow us to keep in front of the market.

 

Moderator 0:02:31.2

 

Nice. What works better in your business with Anaplan? Things from response change, transforming data into action, removing barriers in connecting teams, and even optimizing processes.

 

Scott Soukup 0:02:47.8

 

I've been at Ciena for 25 years, and I can tell you that one of our greatest strengths is the people we have, the talent we have there, and really what we're hoping to achieve is being able to connect all of that talent, and we're doing that with the technology. Being able to connect the talent so that as we need to adapt to different market conditions, different internal situations, we're able to do that very quickly. I think really the connected part of it is going to be very, very important, and the technology has to enable us to connect to people, because that's where we'll excel.

 

Moderator 0:03:24.8

 

Nice, and then there's a little note here about maybe a chance to bring in some of your IBP improvements.

 

Scott Soukup 0:03:31.9

 

Yes, so over the course of a couple of years, we've moved from very siloed planning, and now we actually have an integrated business planning capability at Ciena, where we actually have a council that's led by our FP&A leader. With that, we are connecting sales, supply chain, and finance to make sure that we are not just able to meet our customer demands for product, and services, and software, but also making sure we're hitting our revenue targets.

 

Moderator 0:04:03.1

 

Nice. Smooth. You may have already hit this already, but can you share any examples of how you've transformed your business with Anaplan? Metrics and statistics are great, such as time saving.

 

Scott Soukup 0:04:19.1

 

Over the past couple of years with having Anaplan as our planning product, one of the first things we're able to do is for our revenue assurance planning, for that process we bring in, 80 per cent of our business transactional data comes in to produce a revenue signal. The first step we did there was we removed all that data manipulation and putting together, or clubbing together by the users, and we saved about 30,000 clicks a week. Interactions with different spreadsheets, different applications, so the 30,000 clicks was the first thing. We automated all that, so on day one, Monday, or Sunday night airtime, Monday morning, APJ time, they come in, all the data is there. They have a revenue plan, revenue and margin plan, and they can start analyzing it. The other big things, a couple of other things we've done also in that same area is we have reduced the time it takes to understand the information. With that 30,000 clicks, as well as being able to quickly see the information, the team that was spending all their time pulling together information is now spending most of their time analyzing the information. We've moved from 80 per cent of time putting it together, and 20 per cent analyzing, to 80 per cent analysis on the information.

 

Scott Soukup 0:05:43.9

 

The FP&A teams have been able to transform themselves and how they work by spending more time analyzing data. The other thing too is we used to have two different separate forecasting processes. There was a current quarter revenue assurance process, as well as a long-term forecasting process. The long-term forecasting process would take generally a month to do, and now that's done in a little over a week, and we're making some steps right now to bring both the current quarter and the long-term forecast into the same process. The long-term forecast will be an always on piece of the current quarter. That will basically bring the long-term forecasting down from where it started, a month it took to do that, down to within a matter of just probably a couple of minutes or a couple of hours a day. That way, too, the folks, the regional FP&A folks that are actually doing the forecast planning for current quarter, they'll always be able to look out to the next quarter or even look out six quarters, if they want to.

 

Moderator 0:06:49.3

 

Nice. Why is that so beneficial that it has reduced it from a month now to such less time? Does that give time back to employees to focus in new areas? What are the perks and benefits of that?

 

Scott Soukup 0:07:02.5

 

Well, the biggest perk is the leadership of the company. Think about going from a month down to always on, or even a week. A couple of years ago, executives would get the long-term forecast. By the time they saw the forecast, it was old, couldn't react. Couldn't respond, couldn't react to it. Now, what it will be now, the benefit of what we've done is that leadership can focus on it. They'll see this on a weekly basis, and they'll be able to respond to it, where there's still time to do something about it.

 

Moderator 0:07:34.4

 

Nice. Solid, Scott. Solid. Love it. What functional areas within your business use Anaplan?

 

Scott Soukup 0:07:44.1

 

Well, we have mainly our finance or financial planning and analysis teams use it.

 

Moderator 0:07:50.2

 

Sorry, can I just get you to put that into context?

 

Scott Soukup 0:07:52.5

 

Okay, sure, so within Ciena there are multiple functions that are today taking advantage of Anaplan. Most of the users there are in the finance space, normally within the financial planning and analysis teams. We also have people in culture or HR teams. They use it for workforce planning. We have sales operations using Anaplan for planning the territories and quotas at the beginning of every year. We also have our product line management team that owns the three-to-five-year strategic plan. They're now in Anaplan, and we're bringing in accounting and the controller office into Anaplan, as well.

 

Moderator 0:08:34.4

 

That's nice. That's perfect. I know you've hit this already, but talk to me a bit about how forecast accuracy, allocation of resources, finance team productivity improved with Anaplan, and how has that shown up in the company performance.

 

Scott Soukup 0:08:59.9

 

The way I think all these benefits have manifested themselves, and when I look back over the four years we've been on the journey, we are now seeing finance people become finance people again. It's that transition from a finance person spending all their time worrying about the data, worrying about making sure they can produce the information they need to analyze it. Now they're not only able to see the information, they're able to start analysis, and they're able to start looking out further. The time horizon in which we were planning our revenue assurance process or our operational assurance processes, that timeline has moved from sometimes a reducing view, where you start with an annual plan and then you're just still working. You're still moving through outlook cycles up through the rest of the year. Now the users, the experts in our finance and planning teams, they're able to actually spend more time looking forward, looking beyond that, looking out to the rest of the year. We've started our fiscal year, and we already have a team that's looking out to how we're going to land the year versus how are we going to land the quarter, so it's really the change in behavior.

 

Scott Soukup 0:10:17.2

 

It's also the time that they were spending clubbing together information, they're now spending analyzing, having better conversations with their sales and supply chain counterparts. It's also, too, I'm starting to see, which is really joyful for me, is I'm able to see people that I didn't really realize were finance people becoming finance people.

 

Moderator 0:10:38.6

 

That's really cool. Now, workforce planning, has your capacity planning and workforce alignment with strategy improved with Anaplan, and how has that shown within the company performance? I've got a red note here of I suspect that you have thoughts here, given your comment at Connect New York to have an expense reporting model.

 

Scott Soukup 0:11:04.1

 

Yes, so outside of our R&D world, most of our cost center expenses are related to people, people-related expenses. For us, when we started our cost center expense planning experience in Anaplan, we realized that we really needed the workforce planning. Otherwise, we would be always adding all that information. It really is a significant piece of our cost center expense. Having these two things connected gives us the ability to, one, have a complete picture of headcount within Ciena week over week. We're now week over week, whereas a couple of years ago, we didn't even have a workforce planning capability. Now we're able to see our workforce plan week over week how it's changing, in terms of both full-time people, as well as contractors, as well as interns, and all different flavors. We know exactly where they are in the world, and then also, too, that also becomes very important with our cost center expense planning. The teams that work on that are now able to see the people context versus the other expenses that are involved, so connecting that first was really critical to us.

 

Moderator 0:12:21.1

 

Nice, and then sales and marketing. If you can talk a little bit about deal size, customer retention, performance improved with Anaplan, and how has that shown.

 

Scott Soukup 0:12:33.9

 

I'm not going to talk about any of that stuff, but I'll talk about some stuff, some real-life stories here. Our first foray, one of the things we did on this in terms of sales was really helping, so finance owns the compensation process. With that, the compensation teams are working really closely with sales and sales ops to get their sales comp right. One of the things we did do, we did have a great learning experience with the first with Anaplan. When we first transitioned from Excel sheets into Anaplan, we started with a very small team of people doing sales comp planning, and over the last year or the prior year, that process and the people changed drastically. We had a lot more people interacting, and our first effort at this did not go well. We did spend a lot of time this past year reconfiguring how we understood the user experience from a sales comp or a sales planning perspective. We've released a brand-new module, as well, as an experience out there that's actually working very well, and it has actually changed the dynamic around. This time last year we were still fighting fires with their Anaplan model, and now this year, we're just waiting for the business to get done. It has been a very, very healthy learning experience, and it has taught us a lot about how different user groups interact with a product like Anaplan.

 

Moderator 0:13:57.2

 

Yes, that's really nice. You're on fire, Scott. Literally on fire.

 

Scott Soukup 0:14:02.5

 

A lot of experience here.

 

Moderator 0:14:05.9

 

Now if we move a little bit onto supply chain, how have your inventory turns, stockouts, and other supply chain metrics improved with Anaplan? Again, I know you've hit on it already a little bit, but how has that shown within company performance? There's a red note here. The S&OP antidote you shared at Connect NY fits this.

 

Scott Soukup 0:14:28.1

 

I totally forget that [?end of next year 0:14:29.2], but I will say this, supply chain is actually using another planning platform, so what we are able to do with Anaplan is we're able to connect with that other product, that's called Conexus if you want to keep that in. Having two different planning teams with different planning applications, one of the things we were able to do is leverage the Integrated Business Planning Council and the whole process of how we move from S&OP, which is really sales and operations planning business together without finance. You bring in finance to the mix and now you have IBP. One of the things we've been able to do is really have a really interesting way of connecting our revenue call to the demand plan. Now, instead of having supply chain talk to sales, ingest sales information, create a demand plan, we're now providing the demand planning team a true revenue signal at the level they need it. The demand planning process is now totally informed by a revenue plan versus trying to triangulate between different signals.

 

Moderator 0:15:46.1

 

Nice, so tell us about data governance deficiencies and data science at Ciena, and how they relate to your work in Anaplan, and your potential AI use cases.

 

Scott Soukup 0:16:03.0

 

It's very important to understand how data governance is one of the foundational blocks of building Anaplan practice in a company. Our current Anaplan implementation absorbs over 80 per cent of our business transactional data. There are multiple systems. Those systems have grown over 20 years of implementation and enhancements. You start with an ERP system that has been around for a long time. ERP systems are not designed to connect with other systems, like a Salesforce, or CRM system, or a workforce planning solution, or a workday solution, like Workday, an HR system like Workday. You have a lot of disconnectedness between the transactional systems. As you try to bring that information into Anaplan, you have to have a good data governance program on top of this or structure looking for anomalies, looking for things where something may be right in one system, but when you combine it with data from another system, it's wrong. What we have found is that connecting this data through Anaplan, a lot of times it's that connected story that the users experience. If something is right in one system, but when you connect it, it's wrong, the users will sense it.

 

Scott Soukup 0:17:24.7

 

They will see it in the Anaplan delivery, and so what we've had to do is we've had to really revamp how we look at data governance at Ciena, especially from the Anaplan perspective. We have a very heavy presence on Snowflake, where we're trying to detect anomalies early. That's always a growing journey. We're also having to work really closely with those other business owners of those source systems. Sometimes we identify something in their system that's wrong that they didn't know it was wrong, so having that constant governance model where we have the output of Anaplan, one of many models, the users will identify something, we'll chase it back to a source system, so that can create a lot of time spent between the support teams trying to understand whether you have an Anaplan issue or a source data issue. The governance program that's properly structured is able to quickly identify, rule out an Anaplan issue, and quickly identify what system we need to go talk to, or what system owners we need to go talk to, and understand what's going on in the data.

 

Scott Soukup 0:18:33.1

 

In terms of how that expands into AI, it's probably going to be even more impactful in the AI world, because there's one thing with having transactional data as it is in the system, you want that disparity. You want that variance. You don't want curated data for AI, but you could also have another issue with a lot of human bias in the data, and that's not good for AI. I think the data governance programs will continue to evolve, especially at Ciena, to make sure that we have the best possible data signal coming to Anaplan, as well as data coming out of Anaplan, and getting mixed with other data to provide that good AI signal going forward.

 

Moderator 0:19:17.1

 

Nice. What excites you about the future with your company and how Anaplan is a part of that?

 

Scott Soukup 0:19:25.9

 

What really excites me about being at Ciena, and I've been at Ciena for 25 years, I remember back when I first started at Ciena, Sprint was trying to get their long-distance calls down to 10c a minute. We can definitely see how the world has changed since then. You think about going from lowering long-distance rates to where, all of a sudden, you have cell phones, you have a lot more mobile technology, then you're going to, oh, we're starting with data centers. Data centers now trying to move data. Ciena has been at the forefront of all those great milestones in terms of how we connect with data, how we connect with people. Those past ones, I remember how thrilling it was when long-distance rates just went away, where it was no longer a long-distance call. I remember how thrilling it was to know that our product was right there when Amazon started their data centers and, all of a sudden, you were able to start streaming all these great things that we have today, we take for granted. Our technology has been at the center of all that, all those transformations.

 

Scott Soukup 0:20:29.7

 

What's really exciting is that I don't think we understand how much more important or how greater the journey is going to be with AI, because I think with all that uncertainty we have coming our way, it's going to be interesting in how we respond to it and how we solution it, and being able to plan for that so that we keep our customers happy. We're able to meet their demands, as well as we're able to detect when there could be changes coming our way. I think it's just going to be a very thrilling time to be at Ciena.

 

Moderator 0:20:59.1

 

I love that. What's your favorite thing about Anaplan and what are you most proud of?

 

Scott Soukup 0:21:06.8

 

Oh, my. My favorite thing about Anaplan I think is, well, I guess the real answer to this is that I really enjoy connecting with people. I started in the business manufacturing lines where I could see our product being manufactured by people. I see equipment in a network I know, and I can equate that to the people that built it. In our world today, where so much of our stuff is made at contract manufacturers, we don't see it, and I think the planning process to me is analogous to this. We had a time where, all of a sudden, everyone was spending time with their spreadsheets, putting stuff together. You could see the human effort going into that, and I think at some point that came at a cost of someone, of really people operating to their true potential, their true talents. You take a finance person who really understands finance, they became, basically, spreadsheet experts, and they had to spend all their time putting spreadsheets together. Now, the best thing about Anaplan now is that those days are diminishing quite a bit at Ciena as we continue our Anaplan rollout. It allows, I think, the people to do what they really wanted to do, what they went to school for, what they've invested in their career for.

 

Scott Soukup 0:22:26.4

 

To me, even though Anaplan, we enjoy the technology, we enjoy the technical things we can do with it, I really see the most joyful thing for me again is that we're able to let people see information, interact with it, then start having great conversations with their colleagues about what does this mean and what should we do next with that information.

 

Moderator 0:22:50.8

 

Yes, that's awesome. Last, is there anything else that we've missed that you would like to talk about, do you feel?

 

Scott Soukup 0:22:59.1

 

I think the only other thing I would add, too, is that one of the things I've really experienced with Anaplan is, one, I love the openness of the company, understanding the product roadmaps, where they're going. I love interacting with the different partners we've had with them. Again, there's a very strong people element to Anaplan, the technology it provides, the people I work with in Anaplan, whether on the sales side, or the customer satisfaction side, or on the technical side, and also the relationships I've built over the past five years. In a 25-year career at a company, I think the last five years of working with Anaplan has opened up a lot more of that, of knowing people, knowing really talented people, and being able to grow as a result of that.

 

Moderator 0:23:54.8

 

That was lovely, that answer. Lovely answer. Yes, that was really, really good. This is one of the last sections. It's the final line where you introduce yourself, your title and company, and then you say, 'We plan,' pause, 'With Anaplan.' For example, if it was me, my name, sorry, 'I'm Ben Gorman, creative director at Gormville, and we plan with Anaplan.'

 

Scott Soukup 0:24:22.5

 

Okay. All right, so I'm Scott Soukup. I am an FP&A Director of Technology at Ciena, and we plan with Anaplan.'

 

Moderator 0:24:32.1

 

Nice. One more time, please. Can I get a smile at the end? You've got a nice smile.

 

Scott Soukup 0:24:36.0

 

Okay, all right. My name is Scott Soukup. I am an FP&A Director of Technology at Ciena, and we plan with Anaplan.

 

Moderator 0:24:46.3

 

Cool. One more. Don't forget that smile.

 

Scott Soukup 0:24:48.3

 

Oh, smile. Okay.

 

Moderator 0:24:49.1

 

We plan, pause, with Anaplan.

 

Scott Soukup 0:24:51.9

 

Okay. Got you. Okay, so, all right. My name is Scott Soukup. I'm an FP&A Director of Technology at Ciena, and we plan with Anaplan.

 

Moderator 0:25:00.0

 

That's nice. Almost there.

 

Scott Soukup 0:25:01.5

 

Just pause.

 

Moderator 0:25:01.7

 

Slow it down a little bit, as well. I'm Ben Gorman, Creative Director at Gormville, pause, and we plan with Anaplan.

 

Scott Soukup 0:25:10.9

 

Okay. I'm Scott Soukup, I'm an FP&A Director of Technology at Ciena, and we plan with Anaplan.

 

Moderator 0:25:19.1

 

That's nice. One more, but without the point.

 

Scott Soukup 0:25:20.9

 

Oh, no point. Okay.

 

Moderator 0:25:21.5

 

No point. Just a smile.

 

Scott Soukup 0:25:22.9

 

Perfect, okay.

 

Moderator 0:25:23.2

 

That was really good, though. That was really good, cool.

 

Scott Soukup 0:25:26.7

 

I'm Scott Soukup, I'm an FP&A Director of Technology at Ciena, and we plan with Anaplan.

 

Moderator 0:25:34.4

 

Cool, so last part, this is the last part, it's that opening impact statement. What this is, in that 90 second video for people that may scroll through it, it's almost not saying too much, but a real impact that it has had without revealing the company name. For example, it could be we went from 10 per cent to 80 per cent overnight and it has completely transformed our business. Just something [?you know is a line 0:26:06.9], but I have got red bits here. That could be from acceleration, activation, connection. That has got a red dot. This may be relevant given the reason you started with Anaplan to connect planning to execution. Ciena has made, and this is optimization. Why should organizations automate and streamline processes to drive efficiency and continuous improvement? Ciena has made some impressive gains with financial automation, so you have a strong idea about why that's important. Yes, in one or two lines, what could be that real killer line without revealing what it is? I think you've got this.

 

Scott Soukup 0:26:47.4

 

I'll try. I'll see if I can pull this together here. At Ciena, we're…

 

Moderator 0:26:57.7

 

Try not to reveal the name. It's almost like we've cut it from mid-sentence, but it's that real impact thing.

 

Scott Soukup 0:27:04.4

 

You want to keep Ciena out of it, too?

 

Moderator 0:27:06.1

 

Yes, just because we'll come in straight after. You'll go, 'My name is,' and yes, so that will come in after.

 

Scott Soukup 0:27:12.2

 

All right. In an ever-changing market where our company tries to connect people with data and information in real time at the speed at which the data is created, it puts a lot of pressure on our planning processes to keep up with that demand and that supply. Therefore, over the past couple of years, we've been able to develop a platform to allow us to connect our planning practices, our planning functions, and unleash the ability of our people to see what's happening when it's happening, quickly make changes as needed in order to maintain our customer relationships, and enable us to maintain our revenue targets.

 

Moderator 0:28:05.9

 

That was really good. If you could condense that down to a quarter.

 

Scott Soukup 0:28:09.5

 

Quarter, okay. Let's see. Let me think.

 

Moderator 0:28:12.3

 

Think the key.

 

Scott Soukup 0:28:13.7

 

Yes, let's see if I can do this here. Okay.

 

Moderator 0:28:20.0

 

I would say the platform that you wanted to develop connecting people, I think that was really nice, as well.

 

Scott Soukup 0:28:25.1

 

Yes. I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to talk about the company, and our job is to connect people with information.

 

Moderator 0:28:35.3

 

Yes, I would even say rather than company, what your drive is. Yes, it's almost like the drive, solution. Yes, so think of that one-line hook that's going to get it. Yes, that's what it is really. A hook.

 

Scott Soukup 0:28:50.7

 

Okay, so like our drive, our company's drive is to continuously and adaptively connect people with the information they need, and the people they want to connect with. Therefore, we have to have a process within our company to connect the signals from.

 

Moderator 0:29:09.0

 

That was good. I would even say, 'We have to have a process.' I would start from there.

 

Scott Soukup 0:29:13.8

 

Okay, yes, I think I got this. Okay, so the drive for our company is to connect people with other people through data and information. Therefore, we have to have a platform, a planning platform within our company to make sure that we can connect the people within our company to plan, and make changes in plans, and to adapt to very changing market conditions

 

Moderator 0:29:42.9

 

That's almost there, so that was more of the mission. It's almost, so if I was scrolling through, I want to go and hear, 'This is what life was like before, and this is what life is like now in that market,' to which I would be like, well, I need to watch more to know who you're talking about. It's more along the lines of that.

 

Scott Soukup 0:30:04.8

 

Can I talk about five years ago, we were a lot of people slinging spreadsheets to try to understand what happened, and then by the time we produced it, it was already stale.

 

Moderator 0:30:16.8

 

Yes, you can have that, or even when you said that it used to take us a month, now we've got that in hours.

 

Scott Soukup 0:30:23.5

 

Yes. Okay, so just as our company has to keep up to date. Let me say it this way.

 

Moderator 0:30:33.0

 

It's almost like we've taken a section out, so you don't need to stop and [?say that 0:30:39.1]. It's more or less, 'It used to take us months to get this data in the system. Now it takes us an hour. That's a really good use of our time.' Something like that.

 

Scott Soukup 0:30:50.8

 

Something like that. Okay, let me see if I've got this here. Okay, so over the past few years, we've moved from a very fragmented, and disconnected, and highly manual planning process, into a process that is connected and automated.

 

Moderator 0:31:14.1

 

Boom. If you can get a stat in there, as well. That was gold. That was golden.

 

Scott Soukup 0:31:19.1

 

Well, you can piece it together, so I'll give you the stat.

 

Moderator 0:31:20.5

 

We've got to get this all in one. Yes, all in one. This is the only one that we need to get an all in one.

 

Scott Soukup 0:31:24.3

 

Okay, so a few years ago, our planning process was highly disconnected, fragmented, and very manual, and data was always an issue with it. Today, our planning process is connected, it's automated, and it has allowed us to plan 50 per cent faster than what we did five years ago.

 

Moderator 0:31:47.7

 

That's good. Now you've got it out, let's go one more time with it. That was perfect.

 

Scott Soukup 0:31:50.7

 

Okay. I can't remember what I said now.

 

Moderator 0:31:52.5

 

It's fine, but it's there. Just keep going.

 

Scott Soukup 0:31:54.8

 

Okay, so when we started our journey, our planning process was highly disconnected, fragmented, with a lot of data issues. By the time we produced a revenue plan, it was already stale. Today, our planning process is automated, it is timely, and our executives can see things in real time. I'm going to back up here.

 

Moderator 0:32:20.3

 

That's good, so let's go again from the start. You can shorten it.

 

Scott Soukup 0:32:23.6

 

Yes, so we went from a planning process that took a month to do. It was highly fragmented; it was very disconnected, questions about data, to a planning process that is done within days. It's connected.

 

Moderator 0:32:43.3

 

That was good. It was a bit earnest.

 

Scott Soukup 0:32:45.7

 

Yes, I'm trying to think through it, so let me see. Let's see here. We've moved from a planning process that was highly disconnected. Okay, so over the past few years, we've been able to move from a planning process that was fragmented, untimely, and exhaustive to do, to a planning process now that is fully automated. It's not really fully automated. I won't say that. I want to be truthful here. Okay, so five years ago, we had a planning process that was highly disconnected, and it was connected by people with spreadsheets. Today we have a connected platform which allows us to plan with a lot more automation and a lot more connectivity, and the information we give is very timely to our executives. The next part is that, so we've been able to reduce our cycle time for a forecast by 50 per cent over the past couple of years.

 

Moderator 0:34:01.8

 

Cool. I like that. Let's get that last line again.

 

Scott Soukup 0:34:04.1

 

Okay, so we've been able to reduce our planning process times by 50 per cent over the past couple of years.

 

Moderator 0:34:12.5

 

Nice. Anything you want to add to that last line?

 

Scott Soukup 0:34:16.5

 

Let's see.

 

Moderator 0:34:17.1

 

It has reduced our time by 50 per cent over the last couple of years.

 

Scott Soukup 0:34:25.2

 

I could go back to reduced our cycle time by 50 per cent over the past couple of years and also allowed our planning talent to spend more time analyzing data. Okay, so we've been able to reduce our planning time by 50 per cent over the past couple of years, which has allowed our planning teams to spend a lot more time analyzing the information rather than putting together the data.

 

Moderator 0:34:50.5

 

Cool. One more time. That's good.

 

Scott Soukup 0:34:51.7

 

Okay, so we've been able to reduce our planning time by 50 per cent over the past couple of years, which has enabled our planning talent, our planning teams to… I need to give [unclear words 0:35:02.6].

 

Moderator 0:35:03.9

 

No worries.

 

Scott Soukup 0:35:04.0

 

Yes. That's all right. We'll get it. Okay, so we'll get it. I'll never forget this once I get this. Yes, over the past four years, we've been able to reduce our planning time by over 50 per cent. This has allowed our planning teams to spend a lot more time analyzing information, rather than preparing the data to do so.

 

Moderator 0:35:25.7

 

Boom. Cool. One sec.