Dive summary:

• By eliminating a number of manual processes and moving to a cloud-based performance management solution, The Container Store now forecasts and plans monthly and quarterly instead of traditional annual reporting.
• “We used to only focus on financial planning at the beginning of every fiscal year, and never made any updates to these plans and forecasts, simply because we were held back by the manual processes in place,” said Director of Finance, Michael Lambeth.
• Because the solution is cloud-based, all employees can access the platform directly, and it's simple enough to be used by employees who may not know all the ins and outs of the financial process.

Article preview:

Manually collecting, updating and analyzing financial data has many retailers struggling with inefficient and costly planning processes. Best-in-class merchants such as The Container Store, however, are harnessing the power of the cloud to get real-time access to performance data, leading to more efficient and frequent budgeting and forecasting execution.