Antonia Demmers 0:00:10.2:

Hi, everyone,. My name is Antonia Demmers. I'm a senior manager at Alpha Financial Markets Consulting, specializing in the EPM space, working with asset management firms on financial optimizations. So, today, we're here to discuss optimization of finance within asset management. Super-essential topic, because the finance function is the cornerstone of the industry. Decisions made in finance impact organizations, clients, investors, and the market at large. So agility and competitiveness is super-essential in this market, and we're going to be talking to our three colleagues from Lomis Sayles about their strategy. We're hoping that by the end of this session you feel inspired with actionable insights that can enhance your roles and strengthen your organizations. So, without further ado, Susan, would you like to introduce yourself? 

 

Susan Sieker 0:01:02.6:

Sure. Thanks, everyone, for coming out. I'm Susan Sieker, and the chief financial officer at Loomis. Do you want a little background? 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:01:11.3:

Sure. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:01:11.8:

I've been with Loomis, unlike most people at the firm - and as you'll hear from my colleagues here, where people have been at Loomis for decades - I've been with the firm for about four years. Before that, I was the CFO for Cambridge Associates. We're going to tell you a little bit about Loomis Sayles. It's an asset management firm based in Boston. Cambridge is an asset management kind of consulting firm in Boston. Before that, I worked for, outside of financial services, a big hospitality firm in Dallas, Brinker. They own Chili's and Maggiano's, where I was kind of groomed to be a CFO at a restaurant company. I'm not really sure how that all worked out, but... Before that, I had about ten years at PricewaterhouseCoopers for my foundation.  

 

Antonia Demmers 0:01:56.3:

Thank you, Susan. Greg? 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:01:58.0:

Hi. I'm Greg Woodgate. I'm the chief accounting officer and treasurer at Loomis Sayles. I've actually been with the firm for 29 years, pretty much my whole career. I know it's hard to believe, because I don't look that old. I always like to say that when I introduce myself, but it's really been great to spend my whole career at one firm, especially at one as fantastic as Loomis Sayles. I originally started out at the company in a mutual fund administration role, back in 1995, when we were just starting out our mutual fund business. I served as assistant treasurer for the funds for about seven years, and then made a transition over to the corporate accounting side, where I've held various roles, and financial reporting and budgeting, as the assistant controller, controller, treasurer. Now I'm in my current role, overseeing the financial reporting and accounting for Loomis Sayles operations in the US, and some subsidiaries that we have, but also, internationally, we have offices in the UK, the Netherlands, Paris, and also in Singapore. I also head up the cash management group that also does accounts payable, and oversee a fund administration group that oversees the accounting and administration for our trust funds, hedge funds, and other alternative products. Estelle? 

 

Estelle Burton 0:03:26.1:

Hi, everyone. I'm Estelle Burton from Loomis. I am currently the director of accounting, transformation and control. I've been at Loomis for 25 years, and before that, I was in public accounting for two years. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:03:42.1:

Thanks, everyone. So let's get started. I think to set the stage, let's talk a little bit about who Loomis Sayles is as a firm. Greg? Twenty-nine years. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:03:52.2:

Yes, sure. I've been at Loomis for 29 years. The firm's actually been around for almost 100 years. We were founded in 1926, so I think that was right before the Great Depression, so we survived that, and some other tough financial times over the years. We're looking forward to, hopefully, a big celebration next year. Like Susan said, Loomis Sayles is headquartered in Boston, and we have offices around the world. We're owned by Natixis Investment Managers, which is an investment management company based in Paris. They own about 30 investment management companies around the world. Loomis Sayles is one of the largest. We currently manage about 400 billion in assets, and that's spread across fixed income and equity, maybe about 75 per cent fixed-income, 25 per cent equity, managed both institutionally and retail accounts around the world. The way the company is structured, is we have 15 different investment platforms, which we also call alpha engines.  

 

Greg Woodgate 0:05:13.5:

Those investment platforms are supported by about 20 different support departments that cover credit research and trading, that directly support the portfolio management. We have a large technology and operations group as well, large sales and marketing group, although, we also leverage the sales group at our parent company, Natixis, for international distribution and retail distribution here in the US. Then there are other support departments, like finance, HR, legal and compliance. So a fairly complicated structure for a relatively small investment management company. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:06:02.2:

Thanks, Greg. So, for a firm approaching its 100th year, you'd think that finance might operate as a well-oiled team and process. Susan, you mentioned that you joined as CFO in 2002. Why don't you set the stage for us a little bit there? What was the finance department looking like when you joined Loomis? 

 

Susan Sieker 0:06:21.1:

Yes, so it is a well-oiled machine in some ways. I joined the firm, like I said, in '21, so they've, obviously, been successful for a very long time, but what I think has happened in more recent years is - Greg talked about the mix of business being 75 per cent fixed, 25 per cent equities - and over the last ten years we've gone from one leading fixed-income strategy, really driving the majority of the growth and profits of the firm, to now having a mix across three huge platforms, with 14 different teams, and then you've got the equity teams, as well. It sounds like 25 per cent isn't that big of a position, but they used to be really nothing, and now they're 25 per cent of assets, but they're closer to 50 per cent of our profits, and so they're incredibly relevant. So I think what's happened over time is the business has gotten more complicated. We always prioritize investing first for our clients, and the teams that are serving our clients who at the frontline, and the places that are in the back of the house, so to speak - it's a restaurant term - we're last to get reinvestment.  

 

Susan Sieker 0:07:33.2:

So things that I noticed when I came over to Loomis, is I inherited this excellent team, who has tremendous historical knowledge, had an incredibly rapid close, because we used to be under a public construct, so we closed the books in two days, basically. So there was a lot of things that were working really well, but what I found was, what we were really trapped in doing is just getting the accounting done with the quality expectation that we needed, and the pressure for the quick close. What we weren't doing, that I think is a critical role of finance, is taking all of this knowledge that exists in the team, and infusing it into the business for decision-making support, timely analytics that can really influence the way that things pan out, or just decisions that you make or how you allocate compensation. So when I went through the assessment of onboarding at Loomis, I came back to the CEO and said, 'I think I should really focus in three big areas to build on top of all the things that are working quite well. One is, I think we need strategic planning; secondly, I think we needed FP&A, which didn't exist in the organization, really, at all; and third, we need more muscle on incentive comp, which also rolls up to me in the finance function.  

 

Susan Sieker 0:08:54.9:

One of the things that became quickly apparent to me is, not only were the analytics and reporting missing that supported decision support, we had a lot of blind spots. So incentive comp had, like the business, gotten more and more complicated, where our PMs are rewarded, not just for profits of the firm, but profits of their sleeve. They're also adjusted for how their investment scores are panning out, and a number of other factors. We, basically, had a blind spot that we could only take the time to do once a year, to say, 'What are the profits of the firm generating versus what are these formulas of demand creating?' and it was probably the thing that made me the most nervous when I got to the firm in 2021, that we didn't know how big of a cushion or a gap we had between what the P&L generated and what the formulas created as far as demand. So we did some early-stage, very targeted hiring and comp, and FP&A, and started to build some things manually that were helpful, but it was really hard to get things timely enough to be influential and proactive. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:10:01.9:

It sounds pretty difficult to be making any data-driven decisions on a pretty large transformation undertaking. What led you to start looking at Anaplan, and why did you ultimately choose Anaplan as one of your transformation tools? 

 

Estelle Burton 0:10:18.5:

Yes, a couple of reasons. So, in addition to it being a great product, Susan was familiar with it from Cambridge - I think your team used it - so she knew it had the capabilities for what she needed, and then our parent company also, actually, was using Anaplan, so those two items drove us there. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:10:46.8:

You also made the decision to work with a partner, rather than doing the implementation on your own. Tell us a little bit about that decision, as well. 

 

Estelle Burton 0:10:55.4:

Yes, we definitely knew that we needed to go with an implementation partner. We did not have the capacity to do it on our own, so we looked at a few different partners, and ended up with Alpha. The main reason there being that they had the expertise that they need with the asset management background, and it was a good choice.  

 

Antonia Demmers 0:11:26.3:

We're glad to hear that. So it sounds like Anaplan has been a vital piece to the transformation puzzle. Greg, can you tell us a little bit about your initial priorities and how it fits into the overall transformation? 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:11:39.1:

Yes, sure. Susan mentioned one of the blind spots that she initial had was, what was the wallet on incentive comp, and what was the demand on that. So one of our first priorities was just to get some more visibility into the profitability of the different investment platforms, and the drivers around the profitability. So our initial undertaking, before we were even going down the Anaplan route, was to develop, basically, an Excel model, where we can see all the P&Ls by year, see the trends, tie in the assets under management, which really drives the revenue, and other metrics like headcount. So we undertook to build this huge Excel model that just kept growing and growing, so we could see - I mentioned at the beginning we have 15 different investment platforms - so basically, had a model where, for each investment platform we could see the P&Ls and trends. That would tie in with the AUM, would have another tab, or section, related to each platform, like all the staffing breakdown, and then we had a series of dashboards that would show us all the different levels of margins for all the platforms. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:13:14.5:

As we kept building this, it kept growing and growing, and it ended up being - I think it was about 120 tabs in the Excel file - where we had links where you could hit a link and it would take you to this platform, or that screen, and it was just overwhelming. We got to the point where, every time we updated a forecast, we were updating this model, and the person who was responsible for it, along with his other responsibilities, was taking about two weeks after the forecast was done, to have that model updated so that we could at least as we sometimes wanted it. As it grew, it took longer and longer, and it was just unbearable. So that was a prime candidate for our first Anaplan model. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:14:03.0:

Estelle, can you tell us about how that fits into the more broad transformation journey that the team is going through? 

 

Estelle Burton 0:14:09.7:

Yes. I mean, the Excel was so manual, such a manual process, and took so much time, that by the time it was finally updated, it was almost outdated, because, in today's world, things change so quickly. So it was a huge transformation for us.  

 

Antonia Demmers 0:14:39.7:

So that's the first of many use cases that you've done. You've now been on this journey for the better part of three years. Tell us about what use cases you've implemented so far. We can throw up the honeycomb slide for that, as well. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:14:52.9:

Yes, I could probably touch on this one. So the first one, as I mentioned, was that P&L model that we built. We started that a little over a year ago, and it was about a three- or four-month project, and we started using it late in 2024. We're still in the process of refining and enhancing that at this point. The way that the model was built is, all of that, the P&L data and the AUM data, we, basically, built a data hub where all of our general ledger information flows automatically into the data hub every night. When we were first looking at how we were going to manage the data, I initially thought that we'd just do individual line items off the P&L, and Alpha convinced us to do, basically, every single transaction that's in our general ledger, to dump that into Anaplan. I didn't really see the need for getting that granular, and I was very skeptical as to how that would all come together and form into these P&Ls. Where, it was almost a miracle when everything came together. We're talking like hundreds of thousands of general ledger transactions, all coming together where it ties out on a consolidated basis, and then every individual investment platform P&L, and support department P&L tied out. Part of the reason for that is, if there are models that we want to build in the future, where we need that transaction-level data, it's there for us to use.  

 

Greg Woodgate 0:16:39.2:

So that was a big win, and then in terms of the AUM data, I thought we were initially just going to do it at the strategy level - that would be good enough - but they also convinced us to do it on the account level. So we have about 3000 accounts, institutional and mutual fund accounts, where now we have all of the account-level data for all of those accounts, and it goes back ten years. So there's a rich amount of data that we can see long-term trends, and potentially, with AI, use that data to do some forward-forecasting and projections based on that. So that was the first project. The second one that we did was also very Excel-intensive, and that related to our - we have about 200 technology consultants, who both build internal software and also maintain it. All of the costs for those 200 consultants was, basically, being maintained in an Excel spreadsheet, or a series of Excel spreadsheets, one person maintaining them all, and it was just completing overwhelming. So we're actually in the process of wrapping up that project, which has been hugely successful.  

 

Greg Woodgate 0:18:07.9:

So two projects so far that were hugely Excel-intensive, that we've been able to get into Anaplan, and it's going to save an absolute ton of time. That P&L model that used to take one person two weeks to update, we can update that now in about ten minutes. The Capex model, I was talking to someone who's been heavily involved in that project. There was one function that he used to do that took him five hours, that he can now do in five minutes. So that's really helped with user adoption. Like Susan mentioned, or talked about, we have a number of people who have been at Loomis for a long time. In the finance department, I think there are eight people who have been there for over 20 years. You'd think that those people would be very set in their ways, and would not be willing to accept new software like this, but the user acceptance has been overwhelming, and I think it's really energized people as well. So those are a couple of the ones that we've finished so far. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:19:14.5:

Great. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:19:16.5:

Can I have a little - just because it's spinning in my head, like, the timeline that led up to this, just like a two-second overview? People are in very different stages of making this decision or moving into the implementation, but I think Greg and Estelle touched on a couple of things I just wanted to underscore a little bit further. So in '21 when I came in, and we identified these big pain points on the FP&A, P&Ls that we've been talking about, and the incentive comp blind spots, we built these Excel models so that we could start to have visibility, and I was super-excited. A quick-win with the CIO, loved it, never seen anything like it. I mean, we say it was ready in two weeks, but we literally could only give it to him I think two, maybe three times ever over the course of the year, because we would send it to him, and inside these hundred-some-odd tabs, he's like, 'But this doesn't match this, and which one is right?' because it was manual and it was just a mess. So we would use it selectively, but it really wasn't functional on a repeat basis. So in '21, I would say we did the targeted build these things on Excel, and then in '22 was really leveraging them to navigate 2022, which everyone in asset management knows was a brutal kind of compression of the markets, so thank goodness we had the tools. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:20:37.7:

Then, in '23 and '24 we also upgraded our general ledger system, which gave us a much stronger foundation in this LEGO-block-basis that we could connect things into, that if we had not done that, we would have wanted to automate, but I think it would have been very difficult just to jump straight to Anaplan. So making sure you have your roadmap and the foundation of what do you need, what are the building blocks that get you to the end game, and it's a multi-year process that we're at the very beginning of, but having that upgraded ledger system before we dove into Anaplan, and for some of the early wins, making sure we had designed what we wanted in Excel, and even though it wasn't repeatable, it was much easier to have a quick win in Anaplan, because we knew what we wanted the thing to do, and we just couldn't do it fast enough, and now we can. So it was like the first two things out of the gate with Anaplan, got rave reviews, which allowed us to get more funding, and got more people on the team, as Greg was saying. Instead of like, 'Oh, more work on top of my day job,' people were like raising their hand to say, 'Okay, when can my part get put on Anaplan?' which has been great.  

 

Antonia Demmers 0:21:46.8:

Yes, that's great. You touched on a few things there. User-adoption being super-positive, and the building blocks for your data foundations through these use cases that have been done so far, and your selection of your forward-looking use cases. Any other lessons or anything that you think anybody about to go through this journey and start their roadmap should start to think about? 

 

Susan Sieker 0:22:07.9:

I'll take it, and you guys jump in. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:22:08.9:

Okay, sure. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:22:10.1:

I think one of the other things, we really wanted to have quick wins. So the areas where we had the biggest pain points and we'd started to solve them, were a good place to start, but the other thing that we did is, even though the laundry list of what we wanted to do next, and how it could all build out going forward and involve more of the team was getting more and more energy, we decided to maybe - not everybody loves - but to build a refinement area after each implementation stage. So you build the thing that you want, live in it for a little bit, through one close cycle, or one forecast, and start to see what's not working exactly the way we want it. We've got subject-matter experts sitting at the table there. That helps you refine it so that you make sure you can use it, you can share it, you can actually make the most of it, before you jump into the deep end on something new, and potentially something as a C-plus as opposed to a solid-A deliverable. So that refinement cycle, we're now doing that on everything that we build, to make sure it gets to a really strong position, as opposed to only repeating what we did in Excel, which anything was better than that. That's not the same as getting it towards really humming, and taking the time to refine it.  

 

Greg Woodgate 0:23:23.7:

Yes. So, for example, we went through a phase one, where we were building the P&L model. Then, while we were doing phase two, which was the Capex/Opex on the technology costs, we did the refinement phase. Now we're moving to a phase three, which is on cost allocations, margins. I don't know if anybody's familiar with the mutual fund 15(c) profitability process, but we're doing a project around that. Then there's some other cost allocations that we do between some of our subsidiary companies and the parent company that we're working on. While we're doing that, we'll also do an enhancement and refinement phase, or phase on the previous phase two that we were working on. One other thing that I wanted to mention, when we first started up, for our first project Alpha was involved, and we also used the project management team from Anaplan, which really worked out well for our first project. We didn't really know what to expect going in, so having the expertise from Anaplan with a project manager there, along with Alpha, worked fantastic for us. They really worked well together.  

 

Greg Woodgate 0:24:44.0:

After we finished that first phase, we felt really comfortable. We were more familiar with the product, and we were totally comfortable moving on with Alpha after that. We also did some level-one model-building training that Anaplan provided at that point, where I think there were about seven or eight of us that went through a week-long training class. That really gave some insight into the inner workings of the Anaplan model. That gave me a lot of comfort and familiarity with the model, and also gave me a ton of ideas about different use cases that we could use that for. So that was really helpful to us, as well. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:25:31.7:

That's great. 

 

Estelle Burton 0:25:32.3:

I just wanted to, before I forget, an added benefit to Anaplan is that we can now do scenarios, 'What if?' We haven't done that much of it, because we just went live at the end of '24, but I feel like that's a very big advantage. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:25:51.0:

We have done a lot on comp already, on the markets all over the place, this year, so it's been incredibly helpful to be able to see it in real time. The only thing that might be worth touching on, Estelle, is Greg talked about how people have really found the overlay of work of Anaplan to be something that's really motivating, and people are very engaged in the process, as opposed to finding it burdensome. It also helped us shift this idea of really - we talked about we have tons of historical knowledge on the team, but it also means we have a lot of really antiquated practices - so we instituted the idea of upskilling on the team. Estelle has done really good research, and starting to build some formats to help the team go through that process, but doing these technology upgrades alongside it has helped that idea, which you think would just sound motivating, but it actually felt quite threatening. It made it more tangible I think for people to lean into it. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about how that's helping create kind of a parallel roadmap for upskilling. 

 

Estelle Burton 0:26:49.5:

Yes, I feel like these new tools, or this new tool, people are excited about it. They want to use it, they learn new skills, so it's been a good time to introduce upskilling and continuous learning. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:27:09.7:

Yes, and by rotating it around, you also spread the work around, so different people are getting the overlay. I mean, it is work to build these things, and then they can see the light that it's going to get better, but they can't do it six months after six months of the job on top of the job. So these rotational things have both created some smoothing of the experience, but also created some cheerleaders around the team, that are now getting other people excited about what they might do better using Anaplan. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:27:38.4:

So it sounds like the user experience has been pretty positive, one of the factors being the upskilling aspect. What other factors, or what advice would you give to someone who might be struggling with user adoption about the difference at Loomis versus some other places where it might be a little bit more difficult? 

 

0:27:58.8: 

Do you want to...? 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:27:59.6:

Yes, I can take it.  

 

0:28:00.8:

I have an idea, but hey. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:28:02.8:

We've heard a lot about organizations that have centers of excellence, where it seems like the maintenance and the model has focused in one particular area. The approach we've taken is to kind of broaden it, and use it as a tool that really our whole finance team can use, and I think that that's been really energizing. So each of these projects that we've done so far, we've involved different groups of people on these. So we'll spend time during the model-building phase, which is really intense. I think we have stand-up calls every day at three o'clock for about fifteen minutes to a half-an-hour, and then we have these marathon planning calls that are an hour-and-a-half to two hours. So I think having a couple of people involved at each phase, they can really focus on that, take a break when we're done. A new group can really be in the intense phase, and the others can just start using it as part of their daily routine. So like I said, we're still fairly early in this process, but it's been really successful so far, and we have kind of a pipeline of projects in the future, probably out over the next 18 months to 2 years, that I think is going to keep everyone busy. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:29:30.0:

Then, the other thing I would say is, in terms of momentum, I feel like if we had done a project and stopped it, it would be hard to pick things up again, so I think just keeping things going, it keeps good continuity, not only with the momentum at Loomis, but also with the Alpha team as well, because what we've found is that Alpha definitely has a deep bench of expertise - we've definitely found that out - but once we're working with a group at Alpha, it's great to just extend it out a little bit.  

 

Susan Sieker 0:30:08.7:

Yes, currently ready. I would say one of the things about having the different sponsors for this subset work that we're doing, it creates engagement, because they get to see the benefits that are coming. It also gives them more visibility. So if you think about, like on the P&L model, we're going to sit with the owner of it now, with the CIO, next week and go through the whole model, and their expertise, and getting to hear first-line from the C-level stakeholders, I think is really engaging on the Capex/Opex. Our COO, literally, was so engaged in the process of what we were building, I came out of my office one day, and he's sitting in the cubicle of the person who is taking lead on this Anaplan buildout, and helping figure out what are the different tags that we want to build into the structure. That just gives them such a sense of being appreciated, and having a greater awareness by folks of all the underlying work that people are doing. So it's motivating on so many levels.  

 

Antonia Demmers 0:31:11.2:

Yes, great to give people autonomy over the work that they do, and then to see how that actually links into the broader discussions that are happening. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:31:18.9:

Yes, it also helps people work together who may not typically work together. So I think it's really brought the team together, in some respects, as well, and some of these models actually talk to each other. For example, the P&L model, and the comp model that was also built as part of phase one… 

 

Susan Sieker 0:31:41.3:

They feed each other. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:31:42.2:

They feed each other. Like, once we have the forecast done, and the P&L, we basically hit a button, it gets pulled into the comp model, so that they know what, basically, the bonus pool is. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:31:56.3:

Which also used to take two-to-three weeks on top of the two-to-three weeks, and now that's a five-minute process as well. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:32:01.3:

Yes, it's unbelievable how fast the data goes from the P&L model into the comp model. Our director of compensation takes it, does all his allocations by department, and then we hit another button, and it pulls back into the P&L model, so that we can see, in addition to seeing the direct costs of the investment teams, we can see their variable compensation, all of the support department allocated variable compensations. So we get like a fully-loaded P&L on a consolidated level, and a very granular level as well. So it's just incredible how fast the information can flow back and forth. We've just started doing this, and if it's moving that fast now, it's only going to get better. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:32:51.0:

Yes, a far cry from 2002 when you joined, Susan. So, since I've been working with you all, we've spent a ton of time talking about your roadmap and prioritizing for the future. Tell us about what's next for you. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:33:08.4:

Can I say one other thing about the roadmap, that is I think really important for people to think about? We talked about upgrading the ledger system, and we've been hearing so many folks this week talking about starting with AUM and revenue, which seems like the place to start, and we talked a lot about that as a team, because it is the foundation, but we also knew we were going to be doing an upgrade of both the AUM reporting construct with our parent company over the course of last year, and this year we're doing an upgrade of the billing and revenue system, and we talked a lot about how that might actually accelerate into Anaplan. So even though it made sense business-model-wise to do that first, we pushed that to a future wave, so just remembering to think about the puzzle pieces when you see the Anaplan functionality here, but it all sits on top of something, so really thinking about how it all fits together within finance, as well as things that are happening outside. We didn't upgrade the HR system, and payroll and workforce planning is going to follow now, but we really needed to wait for Dayforce to be fully up and running. So just how it all fits together is so important, but [over speaking 0:34:16.5]. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:34:16.3:

Yes, I know, it's really incredible how much transformation we've gone through over the last few years, and Estelle's been a huge part of that. She took on the role of heading up the transformation part of finance a couple of years ago, and we also have a director of financial systems that she partners very closely with. So just all the transformation and the modernization, and to give Susan credit, like she said at the beginning, all of the investment, because we're an investment management firm, has also always gone to the investment side. Really, finance and other back-office areas have kind of been neglected for too long, and it's great to see that those investments are starting to be made, because we'd be in big trouble if we didn't make some of those upgrades. So adding Anaplan to it has just been icing on the cake. Like I said, the phase that we're working on right now is related to cost allocations, margins. Next down the road, we need it to enhance our AUM reporting. AUM reporting in the asset management business is what's drives revenue. It's such an important key metric to the firm, so we need better reporting around that. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:35:41.6:

Also, revenue forecasting, all of our forecasting has been, and really is for the most part, still done in Excel, so we want to be able to do that in Anaplan. Right now, with the P&L model, we have the functionality to run different scenarios, and as well on the comp model. So Anaplan is just going to become a key piece of our forecasting going forward, so we're looking forward to getting to that. Also, distribution fees. So we have a lot of relationships with our parent company, Natixis, around the world. They do distribution for us, basically, on every continent around the world, and they also do retail distribution for us for mutual funds, SMAs, here in the US. So we have a lot of different distribution fee arrangements, and they're tied to hundreds of accounts that we manage. Right now, that's all tracked on a manual basis in Excel, as well. So I think once we have the AUM reporting, the revenue forecasting down, then we'll be able to layer on the distribution fees, because we'll be able to do a better job forecasting those. The revenue forecasting that we're going to do will actually be on an account-by-account basis. Whereas, right now we're really just forecasting on a strategy level in Excel files. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:37:10.7:

Which matters a lot if you've got threshold fee breaks, and we literally can't see it today. After something happens, we manually are trying to unwind how much of it was because of fee breaks, and how much of it… It's very clunky. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:37:24.6:

Yes, it's been really complicated over the last four or five years. The market's just been really volatile, so in any particular quarter you just get huge swings, which makes it very difficult to forecast.  

 

Susan Sieker 0:37:37.4:

You touched on something else that's important for folks who are in early stages of Anaplan, is getting buy-in from ultimate stakeholders, and also for funding. Finance holds the checkbook, but also, in our case, it's very hard to get money funneled directly to ourselves because we hold the checkbook. It's under more scrutiny. I think I have the benefit of the CFO who was leaving when I came on board, was blathered and had had it. So I came into a forum where I knew we needed to make some investments and modernize, and so figuring out what the team what those things were, but then also working on things where you've got stakeholders outside of finance. Even if you're not pushing Anaplan to them, people who benefit from Anaplan that sit outside of finance become good voices of advocacy for the funding to continue. For folks who are early on, you can tell from this visual, it's not one and done. It really is a roadmap that's going to take years to get it to where you want it to be, and then I'm sure there'll be a whole other layer that we want to build on top of it. So making sure you've got broad business support for the funding and the resources that are needed to do it well, is a key part of the process. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:38:45.8:

Yes, and that's been a big part of the success that we've had so far, is just the buy-in from the bottom right up to the very top. Susan's been fully engaged in all the projects that we've done so far. We do these sprints, and then at the end we had demos, and Susan's always there for the demos, and gives feedback on that.  

 

Susan Sieker 0:39:10.8

Annoying] people at the end of the process [?the best email].  

 

Greg Woodgate 0:39:15.4:

Even our CEO, I think at one point he commented, like, 'What's all this about Anaplan? Why is everybody so excited about one little thing?' because he hasn't really been involved in it, but he hears a lot about it. His office is right in the middle of the finance department, so he hears everybody talking. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:39:35.1:

He used to be the CFO, so he likes to sit in the middle of finance, which is kind of nice. 

 

Antonia Demmers 0:39:39.9:

That's wonderful. Invite him to our demos. We can certainly do that. Just to be a little bit mindful of time, make sure that we have enough time for questions, I'm just going to skip down to our last question. You recently made the decision to use Alpha as a managed service provider, rather than internally building up a COE, so we can take care of the backend of the models for you, error resolutions, small enhancements, and your focus can really focus on the core finance capabilities. Tell us about the decision to use a managed service, rather than building up your OM function. 

 

Susan Sieker 0:40:10.2:

I think we think it's a roadmap, and where we are now, having one person that we could afford to hire on the team would be stretched too thin, they might not have expertise in things as we move around the grid to different things that we're doing, and we just don't have enough breadth to build a multi-person team. So it's given us much more flexibility, and much more efficient ways to move through new development or refinements by leaning on Alpha. But as we've progressed, depending on how this tentacles-out further beyond finance, we're not opposed to building it in-house at all. It's just that the scale and the ability to move quickly, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us. Our parent company does have a COE with a I think six or seven [?model-builders 0:41:01.0] in Paris, and we're thinking of doing an on-site visit with them, just to understand the continuum of how you go from the beginning stages of this to being a really robust, fully-integrated model, which takes probably five or six years. 

 

Greg Woodgate 0:41:15.5:

Yes. 

 

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