在快速变化的经济中，Markel改变了财务规划，最大限度地提高增长和盈利能力

As one of the leading insurance holding companies, Markel is focused on assessing, predicting, and reducing risk. In a dynamic global economy, Markel’s finance team must analyze key performance metrics—revenues, losses, expenses, cash flow, and more—for its insurance businesses and the other non-insurance interests that it holds. Robust, accurate, and flexible financial planning is essential for Markel and its over 300 finance professionals to navigate an increasingly volatile business environment and support continued growth.

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“Timely, reliable, driver-based financial plans that can be updated quickly and easily are critical to running our business,” says Jeremy Noble, Senior Vice President, and Chief Financial Officer at Markel. “But with forecasts for operational and legal entities taking up to 18 weeks to build, it was clear that our existing financial planning solution could no longer meet our needs.”

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In addition, Markel’s prior solution offered limited flexibility and a complicated user experience. Spreadsheets outside of the system were required for complex calculations and reporting, limiting real-time capabilities and introducing the possibility of human error.

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“We recognized that refreshing our financial planning solution presented an opportunity to redesign our entire financial planning processes for greater efficiency and improved business performance,” comments Alex Martin, Senior Vice President of Finance at Markel. “Specifically, we looked for a solution that would allow us to establish standardized processes across our operations globally, while still accommodating local nuances for each of our unique businesses.”

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Building the best platform

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In its search for a flexible and future-proof financial planning solution, Markel invited Anaplan to conduct a proof of concept (POC).

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“The exercise enabled us to see the Anaplan team build the solution in real time, so we could assess how easy it would be to adapt as our needs evolve,” says Meredith Albright, Managing Director of Financial Planning & Analysis at Markel. “We were impressed with the rich functionality of Anaplan, its intuitive interface, and the high degree of flexibility that it offers.”

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Following the successful POC, Markel enlisted the help of Anaplan Partner Vuealta to support a best-practice implementation. “Vuealta’s consulting acumen, extensive insurance industry knowledge and subject-matter expertise were key in Markel’s decision to partner with us,” says Irfan Ozaltin, Managing Director of Vuealta Americas. “Over and above Vuealta’s specialist Anaplan knowledge, we have delivered a clear channel to embrace The Anaplan Way. Markel knew this DNA would be fundamental to its onward success as a business.”

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Transforming financial planning

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Markel’s Anaplan ecosystem integrates data from their general ledger, human capital, and data relationship management systems to support multiple planning processes. To align with best practices, Markel leverages an Anaplan Data Hub as a central data repository. The Data Hub feeds downstream operational models with cleansed data that is aggregated at the appropriate level of detail. The operational models in Markel’s end-to-end financial planning environment are organized into five groups, all of which allow for planning and reviewing results in multiple currencies due to the global nature of the company:

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• Underwriting models are used by insurance underwriters to build gross written premium (GWP) projections using drivers such as rate, renewals, or new business. This is also where earnings patterns (revenue recognition) are calculated and acquisition costs (variable expenses) are layered on.
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• Controllable expenses are where items like office space, travel, professional fees, and—most importantly—workforce costs are managed. “As a service organization, our workforce is our largest controllable expense,” Albright explains, “so we plan at the associate level.” This is also where Markel’s corporate accounting team inputs information centrally for expense items such as depreciation and restricted stock.
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• The allocation model is where all of the corporate, shared service, and divisional expenses are allocated down to the applicable businesses, products, and legal entities. These drivers become the basis for Markel’s actual allocations as well.
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• The consolidation model is used to bring together all of the information to produce a full income statement. This is also where Markel plans their unique businesses such as Markel’s insurance-linked securities (ILS) business—the company is a global leader in ILS management—investment earnings, and income from Markel Ventures, its non-insurance businesses. The consolidation model is also where the corporate accounting team inputs information centrally for items such as interest, amortization, and income taxes.
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• Markel’s newest model, the capital model, contains detailed legal entity information used for capital planning and analysis purposes. Given the granular level of detail, Markel recently split this out into a dedicated model to optimize size considerations.
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Across the five categories of models, Markel builds operational plans and legal entity plans for each of their businesses. “All plans are created concurrently and are directly linked,” Albright says. “This way we have granular detail for both regulatory and capital planning purposes.”

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All maintenance and development are owned by Markel’s Anaplan Center for Excellence. This business ownership model further enables the company to rapidly adapt to the changing needs of the business.

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Albright calls the Anaplan platform a game-changer for Markel. “Because the solution is so user-friendly and supports Markel’s entire business, Anaplan has helped us streamline FP&A and improved our productivity dramatically,” she says. “We save 6,000 working hours a year with Anaplan, most of which had been spent collecting data, performing calculations, and reporting in spreadsheets.”

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Anaplan also supports Markel’s vision for global processes. “Anaplan has enabled us to establish standardized, global financial processes while offering the flexibility for us to adapt to the unique needs of each business,” Albright says. “As a result, we have been able to better serve the needs of each of our internal customers while streamlining the user experience.”

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Establishing the Future of Finance

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In addition to helping financial analysts work more efficiently, Anaplan has enabled the company to reduce the time needed to create its annual financial plan from 18 weeks to just seven, while also increasing the value of work completed. In Markel’s old process, the 18 weeks focused on the mechanics to create the forecast. Now, the seven weeks include three to four weeks of collaborative driver-based assumption inputs and three to four weeks of analysis and review with company leadership.

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“By cutting the time taken to complete our financial planning cycle by more than half, Anaplan helps us to be much more responsive to unexpected changes in market conditions,” says Noble. “In an uncertain economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, having the ability to spot potential issues and adapt our plans on the fly puts us in a much stronger financial position.”

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On a strategic level, meanwhile, the Anaplan solution is an element of a corporate Future of Finance objective that will enable Markel to remain an industry leader. “We’re exploring future ways of working,” Noble explains. “Markel is intentional about creating a diverse and flexible workplace. We’re investing meaningfully in technology and digital capabilities, because solutions like Anaplan drive productivity, create a better customer experience, increase employee engagement, enhance business insights, and facilitate growth.”

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作为领先的保险控股公司之一，Markel专注于评估、预测和降低风险。在动态的全球经济中，Markel的财务团队必须分析其保险业务和其他非保险利益的关键绩效指标——收入、损失、费用、现金流等等。稳健、准确、灵活的财务规划对Markel及其300多名财务专业人士来说至关重要，以应对日益动荡的商业环境并支持持续增长。

Markel高级副总裁兼首席财务官Jeremy Noble表示:“及时、可靠、基于驱动程序的财务计划可以快速、轻松地更新，这对我们的业务运营至关重要。”“但由于运营和法律实体的预测需要长达18周的时间来构建，很明显，我们现有的财务规划解决方案已无法满足我们的需求。”

此外，Markel之前的解决方案提供了有限的灵活性和复杂的用户体验。复杂的计算和报告需要系统外的电子表格，这限制了实时能力，并引入了人为错误的可能性。

Markel高级财务副总裁Alex Martin评论道:“我们认识到，更新我们的财务规划解决方案为重新设计我们的整个财务规划流程提供了机会，以提高效率和改善业务绩效。”“具体来说，我们正在寻找一种解决方案，使我们能够在全球范围内建立标准化的流程，同时仍能适应我们每个独特业务的当地细微差别。”

打造最佳平台

在寻找灵活且面向未来的财务规划解决方案的过程中，Markel邀请了Anaplan进行概念验证(POC)。

Markel财务规划与分析董事总经理Meredith Albright说:“这次演习使我们能够看到anplan团队实时构建解决方案，因此我们可以评估随着需求的变化而适应的容易程度。”“我们对Anaplan丰富的功能、直观的界面以及它提供的高度灵活性印象深刻。”

在POC成功之后，Markel获得了Anaplan合伙人Vuealta的帮助，以支持最佳实践实施。“Vuealta的咨询智慧、广泛的保险行业知识和专业知识是Markel决定与我们合作的关键，”Vuealta美洲董事总经理Irfan Ozaltin说。“除了Vuealta的Anaplan专业知识之外，我们还提供了一个清晰的渠道来拥抱anplan方式。马克尔知道，这种基因将是公司未来成功的基础。”

转变财务规划

Markel的Anaplan生态系统整合了总账、人力资本和数据关系管理系统的数据，以支持多个规划流程。为了与最佳实践保持一致，Markel利用ananplan数据中心作为中央数据存储库。Data Hub为下游操作模型提供经过清理的数据，这些数据在适当的详细级别上聚合。Markel的端到端财务规划环境中的运营模型分为五个组，由于公司的全球性质，所有组都允许以多种货币规划和审查结果:

• 承销模型由保险承保人使用费率、续保或新业务等驱动因素来构建承保毛保费(GWP)预测。这也是盈利模式(收入确认)计算和获取成本(可变费用)分层的地方。
• 可控费用是管理办公空间、旅行、专业人员费用以及最重要的劳动力成本等项目的地方。奥尔布赖特解释说:“作为一个服务机构，我们的劳动力是我们最大的可控支出，所以我们在助理层面进行计划。”这也是Markel公司会计团队为折旧和限制性股票等费用项目集中输入信息的地方。
• 的分配模型是将所有公司、共享服务和部门费用分配到适用的业务、产品和法律实体的地方。这些因素也成为马克尔实际配置的基础。
• 的整合模型用于汇总所有信息以生成完整的损益表。这也是Markel计划其独特业务的地方，例如Markel的保险相关证券(ILS)业务(该公司是ILS管理的全球领导者)、投资收益以及来自Markel风险投资(其非保险业务)的收入。合并模型也是公司会计团队集中输入诸如利息、摊销和所得税等项目的信息的地方。
• 马克尔的最新型号，the资本模型，包含用于资本规划和分析目的的详细法律实体信息。考虑到粒度级别的细节，Markel最近将其拆分为一个专用模型，以优化尺寸考虑因素。

在五种类型的模型中，Markel为每个业务建立运营计划和法律实体计划。奥尔布赖特说:“所有的计划都是同时创建的，并且直接联系在一起。“这样一来，我们就有了监管和资本规划方面的详细信息。”

所有的维护和开发都由马克尔的Anaplan卓越中心拥有。这种业务所有权模型进一步使公司能够快速适应业务需求的变化。

奥尔布赖特称，anplan平台将改变Markel的游戏规则。她说:“由于该解决方案非常用户友好，并支持Markel的整个业务，Anaplan帮助我们简化了FP&A，并极大地提高了我们的生产力。”“通过Anaplan，我们每年节省了6000个工作小时，其中大部分时间都花在了收集数据、执行计算和用电子表格进行报告上。”

anplan还支持Markel的全球流程愿景。“Anaplan使我们能够建立标准化的全球财务流程，同时为我们提供灵活性，以适应每个业务的独特需求，”奥尔布赖特说。“因此，我们能够更好地满足每个内部客户的需求，同时简化用户体验。”

《建立金融的未来

除了帮助财务分析师更有效地工作外，Anaplan还使公司能够将创建年度财务计划所需的时间从18周减少到7周，同时还提高了完成工作的价值。在马克尔的旧流程中，18周专注于创造预测的机制。现在，这七周包括三到四周的基于司机的协作假设输入，以及三到四周与公司领导层的分析和审查。

诺布尔说:“通过将完成财务规划周期的时间缩短一半以上，anplan帮助我们对市场条件的意外变化做出更大的反应。”“在COVID-19大流行造成的不确定经济中，能够发现潜在问题并及时调整计划，使我们处于更强大的财务状况。”

与此同时，在战略层面上，anplan解决方案是公司未来金融目标的一个元素，这将使Markel保持行业领导者的地位。诺布尔解释道:“我们正在探索未来的工作方式。“Markel有意创造一个多样化和灵活的工作场所。我们正在对技术和数字能力进行有意义的投资，因为像Anaplan这样的解决方案可以提高生产力，创造更好的客户体验，提高员工敬业度，增强业务洞察力，促进增长。亚搏彩票app官方网站”