Large Retail Company Leverages PARIS Products for Financial Modeling

This major Fortune 100 retailer uses a Merchandise Financial Planning model for forecasting, planning, and analysis of all product lines. The model performs complex retail math and calculation metrics like Sales, AUR, Buyer Markups/Markdowns, Store Markups/Markdowns, Shrink, IMU, GM, Purchases – Cost, Purchases – Rebate, Inventory Reductions, Turns, GMROI, COGS, GAFS.

Financial Services for Leading Super Car Manufacturer

The model is designed to create a corporate reporting model for the group, integrating heterogeneous data sources from the companies operating in different countries in a central data warehouse. All the companies in the group are using different ERP and legacy systems and, with PARIS software, a standard model has been created to analyze and compare performances in different markets. The model is also used to represent multidimensional reports with actual data for all the financial contracts sold by the legal entities in the group, with a focus on profitability and credit risk analysis, channel performances (the official dealers network) and market penetration (number of cars delivered with a financial product sold by the financial services company). Actual data is also used to calculate standard parameters, useful to implement a forecasting model for budgeting and “what if” analysis. The forecasting model is based on a complex and articulated framework of formulas, used to generate dynamically calculated data in PowerOLAP cubes. The corporate reporting model is also used to generate financial reports with budget and actual data, with income statements, balance sheets, cash flows (aggregated and consolidated).

A Film Distributor uses PARIS Products for Royalty and Residuals

Our products help this film distributor make complex contract calculations to determine royalties and residuals to be paid to scriptwriters, actors, and producers, actors guilds, etc.  Based on individual contract terms and revenue streams varying from advances, international/domestic, type of media.  Before working with PARIS, the contract calculations were completed manually on demand and was very time consuming and prone to errors. The majority of contracts were never actually calculated. Today over 80% are calculated in a standard PARIS model and the remaining items are partially calculated using the model and completed through an exception process.  The model also produces automated printed and formatted statements for each film and contract.

Promotional Event Analysis

This model is designed for analyzing and responding to seasonal and promotional items being marketed and determining the correct price point.  It can be used for multiple simultaneous “events” or specials. The model can determine the most effective selling cost for items during peak demand as well as the best cost for clearing inventory after a seasonal promotion has been completed.  For example, holiday promotions: Christmas Supplies, Presidents Day Sales, Black Friday, Patio Furniture, Gardening Equipment, etc.

Daily Budgeting and Forecasting Projections

In this industry, customers use PARIS products to do their daily budgeting of guest rooms, restaurants, and event/corporate spaces. They know exactly how many rooms are booked or open, and exactly how much revenue they can expect for the day, week, month, etc.  All this on top of their financial reporting makes it all the more accurate because they are dealing with live up-to-the-instant data.

Annual Production Budgeting and Forecasting

A Major Fishing Company in New Zealand uses PARIS Products to budget their fish production. They fish for a wide variety of species and the quantity caught of each species is limited by an annual quota. The fish is processed into products such as fillets or whole fish and sold into markets around the globe, often onto the tables of high-end restaurants within 48 hours of coming off of the boat.

The quota is based on the weight of whole fish caught. Each fish product has a different yield and production cost. The yield is the ratio of the finished product to the weight of the whole fish. The objective is to make the best allocation of the available quota and sell it as chilled product.

In their PARIS model, the selling price of each product is in the currency of the destination market and the price has a seasonal variation. Product availability is also seasonal. The exchange rate fluctuation of each currency also has to be taken into account as does the shipping cost into each market.

PARIS products are used to calculate the budget and forecast financial results by planning the sales quantity of each product for each species by month into each market. This is multiplied by the price and the exchange rate for that market. The cost of the product is calculated from the projected catch cost, the yield for each product and the cost of processing.