Alight Planning Customer Pittsburgh Mercy Health Systems Wins Leadership Award
Alight LLC, developers of the industry-leading Alight Planning performance management software, today announced that its customer Pittsburgh Mercy Health Systems received the top Ventana Research 2010 Leadership Award for Business Analytics and Performance Management. The award recognizes Pittsburgh Mercy, which operates mental health care facilities across Southwestern Pennsylvania, for its accomplishments in moving from spreadsheets to a dedicated planning and reporting application for two hundred and fifty revenue and cost centers.
The Ventana Research Leadership Awards identify individuals and organizations that have contributed to advancing the use of information and technology to improve people and processes. They identify “Leaders” who have contributed to their organizations’ successes and to the technology firms who provide the underlying information systems.
In describing the Leadership Award for Pittsburgh Mercy and its technology provider Alight LLC, Mark Smith, CEO for Ventana Research, focused on the specific best practices developed by the Pittsburgh Mercy finance team in implementing Alight Planning for doing rolling forecasts. “Best practices,” said Smith, “include business planning that can operate collaboratively and as the business operates for reviewing results and updating forecasts and incorporating a unit, rate and amount analytic structure for understanding business drivers and performance impacts. Pittsburgh Mercy and Alight Planning should both be congratulated for their work to advance the use of business analytics and planning for this Leadership Award.”
“Ray Wolfe, CFO at Pittsburgh Mercy, and his finance team have done a remarkable job taking an extremely complex set of reporting and forecasting requirements and distilling them to the essentials needed for effective collaboration at all levels of management,” said Don Koenes, Vice President of Services for Alight. “In particular, the quarterly forecast update process, which involves team meetings of managers across like functional areas, has been particularly effective in identifying revenue opportunities and cost reductions through the real time sharing of best practices between clinics.”
“Alight has let me implement a totally new culture for planning and analysis here at Pittsburgh Mercy,” said Wolfe. “We no longer budget. With a focus on the operational elements of our business which Alight provides, we know improved financial results will follow. To date we’ve documented over $450,000 in concrete savings and improvements which we are able to return back to our mental health clients in the form of better products and services.”
Click Here to view the webinar: “Transforming Planning at Pittsburgh Mercy”
About Ventana Research
Ventana Research is the leading benchmark research and advisory services firm. We provide expert guidance to help organizations manage and optimize performance - to become not only more efficient but more effective. Our unparalleled insights and best practices guidance are based on our rigorous research-based benchmarking indexes of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions worldwide. The combination we offer of benchmark research, rigorous market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means we can deliver business and technology education and expertise to our clients where and when needed. The Ventana Research Indexes - the Value Index and the Benchmark Index family - have redefined the research industry by providing accessible, easy-to-use research-based business and technology guidance to businesses.
About Alight LLC
Alight LLC’s Alight Planning is a true driver-based financial planning and reporting software package that automates complex business modeling for more accurate strategic plans, revenue projections, budgets and rolling forecasts. Its unique architectures and easy-to-use interfaces provide finance staff the power they need to build complex driver-based planning models, while delivering traditional budgeting and planning structures such as line item detail, integrated financial statements and multiple-user security. Cost-effective and IT-independent, Alight Planning is affordable and easily deployed by Fortune 500 business units, as well as midmarket companies with limited IT resources. Alight has over 200 customers including Kaiser Permanente, Pittsburgh Mercy, the Swan and Dolphin Resort at Disney World and Verizon Wireless. For more information about Alight Planning, visit www.AlightPlanning.com or call 800-960-7717.
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