Case Study

Solution

PowerExcel BI software, PowerExcel publisher, and Olation Studio for :

1. Automated budgeting & financial reporting.
2. Profitability analysis at all component levels.
3. The streamlined creation and distribution of financial reports.
4. A centralized data warehouse.

customer perspective

With the goal of simplifying and streamlining the laborintensive process of accessing data in the Elite system and generating financial, department-level, and client matter profitability reports, CFO at NYC Law Firm, engaged PARIS Tech to evaluate their profitability reporting and analysis requirements and present an advanced, multiphased, bestof-breed solution. “At the time, we used Microsoft Access to generate client matter profitability reports and Excel spreadsheets to manually construct department-level profitability reports. It was a lengthy process requiring intimate knowledge of unfriendly data structures,” said the CFO. “I needed to find a way to automate this process, allowing my staff to devote more time to performing financial analysis and less time to generating reports.”

SOLUTION – BUSINESS ENLIGHTENMENT

PARIS Tech worked in collaboration with the Director of Financial Systems Development at NYC Law Firm and her team. The PARIS Tech/NYC Law Firm partnership performed a needs analysis, defined the project requirements, and created a blueprint for the design, development, and integration of a four-phased solution. NYC Law Firm’s willingness to partner on the project accelerated project execution and facilitated a rapid transfer of knowledge of the PARIS Tech solution.

2. A MATTER OF MEASUREMENT: CLIENT MATTER PROFITABILITY

With Phase 1 successfully in place and running, the CFO & Director of Financial Systems moved ahead with PARIS Tech to implement Phase 2 of the project–client matter profitability analyses. The NYC Law Firm & PARIS Tech team had succeeded in accelerating the production of detailed department-level profitability analyses, and Phase 2 now called for integrating data and generating client matter profitability reports. This phase also included allocating overhead expenses, such as rent, to ensure that profitability reports included all expenses. “Before the PARIS Tech solution was in place, client matter profitability reports were labor-intensive to produce,” said the CFO. “The detailed scoping sessions helped ensure this phase of the project ran smoothly. NYC Law Firm had a clear design for measuring client matter profitability. We had very specific requirements for expense allocations and revenue realization measurement. PARIS Tech worked very closely with us and quickly came up to speed on our goals and requirements. Good project management and an excellent working relationship enabled us to successfully share the workload with the consultants. We now have detailed profitability information available for every client and matter in the Firm, right at our executives’ desktops. These Excel-based reports are multidimensional and easily updated as often as needed. Our design is flexible to allow for changes submitted from the management team.”

4. BLISTERING SPEED & ACCURACY WHEN IT COUNTS

PowerExcel’s ability to rapidly deliver on-demand is best described in this brief quote by the CFO. “PowerExcel’s speed and accuracy were clearly demonstrated the day before my vacation began. The Managing Partner placed an urgent request to receive a detailed profitability analysis for 45 of our top clients. I knew that PowerExcelwould be able to handle the task–what was previously a week-long task was initiated, completed for my review, and delivered to the Managing Partner in one day–the same day the request was made. It is in situations like this that one truly recognizes how much PowerExcel has automated data access and streamlined the business performance management processes at our Firm.”