The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has chosen Hyperion Strategic Finance as its financial modelling and evaluation software solution, guaranteeing enhanced levels of accuracy in terms of financial planning.
A self-financing national development finance institution, the IDC focuses on contributing to economic growth, industrial development and economic empowerment through its financing activities. From being a leading industrial player at national and regional (SADC) levels, it has evolved into the first South African development finance institution to have its mandate extended to the rest of the African continent.
The solution, worth over R1 million, was sold by e-business solutions provider e.com institute. Global Technology Business Intelligence (GBI), the business intelligence division of JSE Securities Exchange-listed Global Technology and local distributor of Hyperion Solutions, is working with e.com institute to deliver the solution to the IDC.
"We did not want to waste resources by focusing on building and maintaining cumbersome spreadsheet modelling tools. With Hyperion, our finance people can spend their time and efforts testing alternative strategies, building contingency plans and understanding the impact of those strategies and plans on the IDC`s long-term goals," says Nontobeko Ntsinde, head of corporate finance at the IDC.
"The overriding requirement is that the investment portfolios initiated should have a meaningful impact on our development objectives and be profitable and self-sustaining. For this reason, we needed a strategic financial modelling application that would give us real-time information on alternative strategies.
Hyperion Strategic Finance enables analysis of the financial impact of critical business decisions, says Alwin Swales, sales and marketing director at GBI. "Its key features include packaged financial modelling, with pre-built financial statements, and financial statement relationships, ratios and valuation metrics. Its flexibility and customisation will allow the IDC to modify the model to pull in company-specific variables, assumptions and drivers, increasing the integrity of their financial model."
The solution will standardise modelling conducted at the IDC, creating a knowledge management environment and ensuring continuity. Models are fully transparent and auditable, with a full audit trail and the ability to view source information and the assumptions or calculations that have been applied in any Hyperion Strategic Finance view. This creates accountability and enhances knowledge management. The product also offers full accounting integrity.
The organisation has bought user licences for its corporate finance department, which will use the software to analyse prospective investments and their potential outcomes. Go-live is planned for June 2004.
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