Southpark Corporation

“IT’S ENABLED US TO DO SOMETHING THAT WE WEREN’T DOING AT ALL BEFORE BECAUSE THE TASK WAS TOO BIG AND WE DIDN’T HAVE THE TIME. IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN THREE TO FOUR DAYS TO CONSOLIDATE THE MONTHLY REPORTS AND GET AN OVERVIEW OF THE BUSINESS – WE CAN DO THAT IN TEN MINUTES NOW.” - MATT COOMBE

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE MINDFULL?

I already had confidence in the platform and when we found that Mindfull’s Mi B.I. solution had the capability to deliver everything that we wanted out of the box in a very short timeframe, we didn’t feel the need to look any further.

WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM YOU BROUGHT TO US?

We are a complex group with over 30 legal entities that we have to report on. They were previously spread across two different transactional systems and we had no way of consolidating the financial results into one place.

IN THREE POINTS, WHAT DID WE HELP YOU DO?

• We are now able to extract and consolidate data from two different source systems, which has greatly improved reporting, forecasting and budgeting.
• The use of hierarchies helps us aggregate information in a much more useful way. We have summarised information at our fingertips.
• We also have the ability to consolidate in different ways by using alternative hierarchies. Instead of just looking at data across a legal entity, we can segment it in different ways by the type of business it is. That’s how we run and manage our businesses, by which type of activity they are involved in rather than what specific legal entity it is. That flexibility is really important to us.

WERE WE MINDFULL OF THE TIMELINE?

We did some good planning work beforehand with Mindfull’s project manager, and the team came well prepared. The implementation only took three days – we were surprised how quickly they were able to get it done. The support since has also been outstanding.

WERE WE MINDFULL OF THE CONTEXT?

Previously, the only way we could consolidate was to print out P&Ls from each entity in the various systems and look at those. The monthly reports were a pile a paper, probably 10 centimetres high – and that’s just the P&Ls. There was no way to understand how we were performing globally and as a group.

WHAT ARE THE RESULTS OF OUR WORK?

We can get information faster, which gives us the ability to manage the business better, to quickly see patterns and make better business decisions. We can focus on improving the business rather than just keeping it going. It’s enabled us to do something that we weren’t doing at all before because the task was too big and we didn’t have the time. It would have taken three to four days to consolidate the monthly reports and get an overview of the business – we can do that in ten minutes now.

WHAT DO YOU THINK BEING MINDFULL MEANS?

To me that means taking a holistic view of things; to try to see the full picture.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST MINDFULL OF IN YOUR LIFE?

I’m mindful of my family, of having work/life balance and having some sort of satisfaction about what I’m doing.

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