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Decision Inc. transforms NPO systems

mothers2mothers has migrated from a manual spreadsheet-based system to a Decision Inc. developed Adaptive Insights solution to rapidly transform its business operations.


Johannesburg, 19 Feb 2018

Decision Inc. has completed the implementation of its Adaptive Insights solution at international non-profit organisation (NPO) mothers2mothers to enable it to become more efficient with its project management and donor approach.

About mothers2mothers

Fact sheet
Solution: Adaptive Insights
Industry: Health and welfare NPO
Provider: Decision Inc.
User: Mothers2mothers

mothers2mothers is an international NPO dedicated to preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV by providing education and support for pregnant women and new mothers living with HIV. It believes in the power of women to eliminate paediatric Aids and create health and hope for themselves, their babies, families and communities.

Founded in 2001, the organisation currently works in over 400 sites in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa and employs more than 1 000 women living with HIV.

The requirement

The organisation was using a complex and tedious spreadsheet-driven budgeting process that was not efficient.

"It runs roughly 380 different projects at a time and needs to manage the allocation of funds coming in from various donors. Complicating things is the fact that projects begin and end on different times, so it is really difficult to manage the process effectively," says Andries van den Berg, business manager for enterprise performance management (EPM) at Decision Inc.

mothers2mothers needed a solution that could address this requirement and significantly enhance its efficiencies.

Andries van den Berg, business manager for enterprise performance management at Decision Inc.
Andries van den Berg, business manager for enterprise performance management at Decision Inc.

Dughall MacDonald, Corporate Finance Analysis and Systems Manager at mothers2mothers, says this meant implementing a centralised system that could run multiple budgets across eight countries in Africa and three entities across the world.

"Features we required included the ability to combine and consolidate budgets easily and adjust any areas in as efficient a manner as possible. We reviewed multiple systems, and Adaptive Insights came out as the best solution for our needs. Other options were quite restrictive, but the Decision Inc. offering could be customised to our unique business requirements," he says.

The solution

Van den Berg says Decision Inc. started from a zero base, as there was no existing back-end system beyond the spreadsheet solution.

"The non-profit components of the Decision Inc. system meant we were able to very easily configure the solution and save mothers2mothers a significant amount of time. Now, they have a system that automatically indicates where overspends occurs on a project," he says.


According to MacDonald, the implementation went smoothly. "As it was the first time we were running a system of this scale, we had the opportunity to evaluate how we package certain items internally. The organisation made quite a few changes to streamline processes in the back-end."

The Decision Inc. solution provides real-time insights on costs, expenses, and has validation built-in on a secure platform. Additionally, because it is cloud-based, its users can access and login to the system from anywhere in Africa where it is active.

"Originally, the queries were built through Adaptive Insights. But Decision Inc. performed detail scoping to customise it even more from a user experience perspective. The client provided feedback on a continual basis, which enabled us to tweak the implementation as we went along."

The result

The Decision Inc. system has already completed the first budget cycle, with the customer being very happy with the implementation.

"They now have complete control over the internal processes, with everything captured and accessible from a central location. This significantly minimises the risk of errors, with mothers2mothers expecting to see real benefits in the new financial year," says Van den Berg.

Already, the organisation is looking at the next phase of improvements and enhancements to further enrich its processes.

"January was our first month running live with the system across all our sites. Up until now, the core team was managing and working on it at a few locations. However, we feel it is really making a difference and things like version control on the budgets are significantly improving our response times," says MacDonald.

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Decision Inc.

Decision Inc. is a leader in enabling its clients to make better decisions, faster. Decision Inc.'s foundation is built in technology, but what makes it unique is its understanding of effective decision-making.

Decision Inc. represents leading global technology brands and is an expert in the implementation, support and execution of these technologies. Its experienced consulting resources deliver decision advisory and strategy capabilities, data engineering, insight generation and presentation, as well as solution enablement and support.

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