Vanguard Predictive Planning™ for Finance

Still using spreadsheets? Stop! Using spreadsheets is a manually intensive, error-prone and archaic way of supporting FP&A. Spreadsheets lock-up data in silos and create more issues. This outdated approach results in poor performance for FP&A teams. Top performers are moving to automated, advanced analytic-powered, unified planning systems such as Vanguard Predictive Planning. With Vanguard, organizations can make decisions based on unified plans with less manual data entry.

Budgeting and planning software

Financial forecasting software

Financial consolidation software

Bring Finance into the IBP / S&OP Process

Companies reach peak performance when sales, operations, and finance teams work together to forecast and plan their businesses. Vanguard’s Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) capabilities help finance teams bring together forecasts and plans from other departments, reconcile gaps between plans, and build consensus.

Featured resources

Solution brochure

Budgeting, planning, and forecasting

Case study

A DOT found the best way to apportion funds to projects

White paper

Cash Flow Forecasting Checklist

Why Vanguard Predictive Planning™

Decision-Centric

Automate planning processes with a powerful AI engine and an unlimited number of strategy choices and constraints. Build advanced workflows, set alerts and notifications, and manage by exception. Provide planners with the most accurate and up-to-date predictions that will result in harmonious, goal-based decision-making across all plans.

Decision-Centric Planning

Collaborative

Leverage team wisdom in meaningful ways with Vanguard's Collaboration Hub. Broadcast messaging, system-wide searching, and hashtagging are all supported by the built-in, actionable collaboration feed. Incorporate the team's hard-earned wisdom while staying true to the data. Plug in key knowledge to improve forecast and planning accuracy.

Collaborative Planning

Probabilistic

Remain resilient against variability with Vanguard's market-leading advanced analytics: artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and an optimization engine. Analyze what-if scenarios with the support of Monte Carlo simulations to understand the probabilities of various outcomes. Turn uncertainty into profit.

Probabilistic Planning

Unified

Enable end-to-end visibility and alignment. At the heart of Vanguard Predictive Planning™ is our Unified High-Performance In-Memory Object (UHIO) database which supports a unified data model across all plans. Watch a change to the sales forecast impact the demand, supply, capacity, production, and financial plans in real-time.

Unified Planning

Client Results

“Billions [of dollars] in operating margin and trillions in market capitalization separate supply chain winners from losers,” according to AMR Research. With Vanguard Predictive Planning™, best-in-class planners see:

%

Reduction in inventory

%

Increase in perfect-order fulfillment (complete, accurate, and on time)

%

Shorter cash-to-cash cycle times

%

Fewer stock-outs than competitors

What our clients have to say

Joachim Schwarzkopf MBA, PhD

Senior Portfolio Manager, Novartis – Vaccines & Diagnostics

"We are making strategic decisions that have long-term impacts on our business. Without Vanguard, we would not have the visibility and analysis we need to make the right decisions."

Read Case Study

Ana Rodriguez

Director, Enterprise Applications and Integrations

"Vanguard has enabled Skullcandy to be more automated and calculated with our Demand Planning. The usability and thorough on-boarding and configuration process offered by Vanguard enabled us to completely migrate from our historical software very quickly"

Brent Phillips

Director of Demand Planning at Traeger Grills

“Our team selected Vanguard Software because we believe they are the best solution for our current demand planning needs and future supply planning needs.”

Renee Thomas Jacobs

CEO, Buy Auto Parts

"From the first time we loaded our data into Vanguard, we've been happy with the results. Between heightening our understanding of sales cycle curves, the immense flexibility, and responsiveness of the platform, and providing a single view of all items and categories, we've had a very positive experience."

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Jim Cafferty

Lead Evaluator for Winzer

“One vendor stood head and shoulders above the others through the process — Vanguard Software. Vanguard consistently worked harder and provided more tangible, high-quality data and answers to questions than any other competitor.”

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Vijay Ramadoss

IT Technical & Management Expert

"Vanguard is really easy to use and allows you to quickly pull demand data to use to support the business. Vanguard’s staff is always willing to help out with any question/concern I have about the system/information. Vanguard’s onsite training was extremely beneficial to help learn the tricks of the tool."

Geoffrey Taylor

Logistics and Inventory Manager, AFT Pharmaceuticals

"We looked for a software which could deliver the necessary requirement for our business and allows for customization. Vanguard has that capability and proven to be a reliable software, with a good supporting team behind it."

Cameron Yee

Business Analytics Manager, Buy Auto Parts

"After reviewing five different forecast systems, Vanguard excelled in all our requirements. Vanguard has great visualization and interface tools to assist with Ad-hoc and strategic analysis. The ability to measure statistical forecast accuracy greatly adds merit to the competency of the system. What really sold us was the exceptional customer service support to maximize the full potential of the software."

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David White

Business Intelligence Manager, Endeavour

"After the initial Pre Sales demonstrations to our prospects, the most common statement is not whether they wanted to go ahead, it is when should we start the trial."

Ewelina Piasecka

Demand Planning Manager, Sensata Technologies

"Vanguard brought massive, positive improvements to purchasing, confidence, and stock reduction. Their system helped us stabilize production. That saved us money, but it also enabled us to grow the business more sustainably. Instead of managing spikes in demand, we achieved much greater stability in production scheduling and fulfillment."

Curt Mason

Financial Analyst, Francesca's

"We use Vanguard to effectively create and distribute sales plans to our field leadership to help them manage their business units."

Dave Palew

Director of Supply Chain, Aurobindo Pharma USA

"At its core, Vanguard Forecast Server is a user-friendly forecast generator with powerful analytical tools and easy-to-read reports. As users become more adept with the system, their ability to manage and manipulate forecasts increases tremendously. The results are consistently more accurate forecasts, time and again, and better forecast accuracy leads directly to a better bottom line for our business."

Read Case Study

Marcia Ferrill

Assistant Director, Planning and Development – Kansas Department of Transportation

"Vanguard's forecasting process makes us so much more effective as an agency, especially when every dollar really counts."

Read Case Study

Patty Thompson

Sr. Accountant, SDOT

"South Dakota DOT had heard from another State DOT about how they forecast their cash, and because we had been looking for that type of system, we spoke with that agency and decided to inquire about getting a similar system tweaked to fit our needs."

Tim Oligmueller

Director of Business Intelligence, Keen Footwear

"The reason I chose Vanguard was the quality of the pre-sales support and assistance in setting up a proof of concept with our actual data. While functionality was similar between all the choices your team and immediate sales support are what closed the deal."

Chris Patterson

Demand Planning Manager, Natrol

"Vanguard is a premier forecasting tool for businesses of all sizes. The data flexibility, reporting tools, continuous support is why we chose Vanguard over other software solutions."

Carl Turner

Vice President of Supply Chain, Mayne Pharma

"Our company grew rapidly with the acquisition of a large number of products that more than doubled our SKU (stock-keeping units) base. We were implementing a robust Sales and Operations (S&OP) process and needed a tool to assist our team in forecasting demand. We evaluated multiple solutions and continued to return to Vanguard based on their solution and the quality of their design and support team. Since implementing Vanguard we have seen a substantial improvement in our forward-looking forecast as measured by our Mean Absolute Percentage Error. We are confident we made the right selection in choosing Vanguard."

Technical features

Promotion planning

The ability to model and manage promotions (or integrate with third-party promotion tools) is a key differentiator of Vanguard Predictive Planning. With a robust set of techniques to model promotions, Vanguard Predictive Planning sets itself apart.

Advanced workflows

Workflows are the backbones of every supply chain plan. Vanguard Predictive Planning offers users advanced, easy-to-define and easy-to-support workflows to enable both planning and S&OP processes.

Collaboration Hub

Vanguard Predictive Planning comes with an industry-leading collaboration portal. Never again will organizations to never again have siloed planning or limitations to those who can collaborate.

End-to-end planning

Vanguard Predictive Planning is an integrated business planning platform that provides organizations with true end-to-end planning and visibility.

Master production scheduling

Vanguard Predictive Planning creates the optimal schedule for production based on rules and constraints.

Simulation

Move from single-threaded what-if scenario planning to true simulation. Monte Carlo simulation instantly allows you to run hundreds or thousands of scenarios with a range of variables.

Monte Carlo simulation

Plan based on probabilities and improve forecast confidence intervals using Monte Carlo simulation.

What-if scenarios

Complete support for unlimited what-if scenarios that you can save and share. Additionally, non-forecast owners can propose forecast changes for any scenario.

Real-time analytics

With a unified data model, Vanguard Predictive Planning delivers analytics in real-time as soon as any changes occur to the plan or data. Additionally, users can set alerts to be notified of such changes.

Demand profiles

Forecast automation and accuracy plus optimized inventory and operations increase profits and profitability by reducing stockouts, lost sales, emergency orders, and labor and customer acquisition costs.

Exception-based planning

Mature supply chains manage by exception; Vanguard Predictive Planning enables extensive exception-based processes.

Machine learning

Vanguard Predictive Planning leverages machine learning algorithms as part of its artificial intelligence capabilities.

Market-leading statistical forecasting

Supply chain planning software offers usersan array of forecasting methods. Vanguard Predictive Planning is the most robust on the market, providing users with the most accurate results.

Demand sensing

Vanguard Predictive Planning includes proprietary forecasting methods for near real-time forecasts.

Financial forecasts

While some solutions can “dollarize” plans, Vanguard Predictive Planning creates financial forecasts, including cashflow, net income, and various financial reports, out-of-the-box.

Causal forecasting

Organizations should try to determine the leading indicators that impact demand for their products. Vanguard Predictive Planning fully supports this analysis and forecasting technique.

AI engine

Vanguard Predictive Planning leverages artificial intelligence across multiple features of the platform including forecast method selection, demand prediction and pattern detection, and automation of tasks.

S&OP workflows

Workflows are the backbones of every supply chain plan. Vanguard Predictive Planning offers users advanced, easy-to-define and easy-to-support workflows to enable planning and S&OP processes.

Automatic detection

Vanguard Predictive Planning automatically detects and excludes outliers from the forecast.

BI and dashboards

There is no need for a third-party BI solution. Vanguard Predictive Planning includes robust reporting and dashboard capabilities.

Top-down, bottom-up, and middle-out forecasting

Regardless of how your organization generates forecasts, Vanguard Predictive Planning supports it all. Vanguard also supports any combination of variables including SKU-location, SKU-warehouse, customer, and more.

In-memory what-if analysis

With support for millions of SKUs, Vanguard users can instantly forecast for any number of products and scenarios. Vanguard’s in-memory database (UHIO) enables lightning-fast calculations so users have no downtime.

Collaborative forecasting

Collaborative planning and forecasting enhances supply chain integration. Vanguard Predictive Planning maximizes the collaboration potential for teams to exchange information internally and externally.

Segmentation

Vanguard Predictive Planning supports a wide array of SKU segmentation methods including, but not limited to, ABC, speed, cost, and service levels.

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Vanguard Predictive Planning™ for Finance