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Customer Story
How Prefect models accurately with 3x the speed
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90
Employees
$46m
Raised
Software
Industry
Series B
Stage
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Results
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Causal is a game changer for us -- we moved from manual and siloed forecasting processes in Excel to now having automatically ingested actuals and dynamic and intelligent projections and forecasts. We can now communicate results quickly and accurately while being a true business partner to the rest of the organization.
6-week onboarding
Onboarding and support have enabled the Prefect team to be self-sufficient
40 hours saved per month
Streamlined scenario analysis and reporting.
More time for strategic partnership
Time freed up to focus on strategic, value-add work.
The Problem
Accurately modelling revenue across product lines is crucial for the Prefect finance team. With rapid growth and ever changing business requirements, they quickly reached the limits of spreadsheets.
Too hard to maintain
In Excel, manual data imports, complex formulas, and a lack of auditability made it difficult to maintain the model while incorporating accurate historicals and dynamic projections.
Inflexibility
Thomas found it difficult to build a modular Excel model that was easy to update when business requirements changed. This rigidness forced the team to complete patchwork across the model, which decreased the accuracy of projections.
Delivering timely insights
The manual nature of the model made creating compelling charts and visuals cumbersome. With disconnected data and changing assumptions, each visual had to be subsequently updated as changes were made in the model.
The Solution
Dynamic and integrated modelling
Our customer success team worked with Marley Spoon to build out their full revenue model in Causal. The model is at a weekly granularity, tracking each weekly cohort separately, spanning 6 years.
The model also spans 8 countries and 2 brands, letting Dina and her team drill down into any of the 12 combinations of 'country' and 'brand', as well as easily see aggregated views across the categories.
The total number of formulas required in the model was reduced from 6.5 million in Excel to a few hundred in Causal (a 10,000x reduction). Dina’s team are tracking multiple versions of the model separately using Causal’s Version Control functionality.
The model also spans 8 countries and 2 brands, letting Dina and her team drill down into any of the 12 combinations of 'country' and 'brand', as well as easily see aggregated views across the categories.
The total number of formulas required in the model was reduced from 6.5 million in Excel to a few hundred in Causal (a 10,000x reduction). Dina’s team are tracking multiple versions of the model separately using Causal’s Version Control functionality.
Robust scenario planning
Using an array of scenarios that would have broken Excel many times over, Prefect can now efficiently evaluate changes in demand and prices, and dynamically chart them against each other in a visual and intuitive way, keeping all their ducks in a row. What used to take dozens of hours a month now takes minutes for Thomas and his team.
Quick onboarding + self-sufficiency
Over a six week period, Thomas worked with Causal’s customer success team to get Prefect’s existing corporate model up and running. With Causal’s coaching-first approach, Thomas gained the skills and confidence necessary to truly own Prefect’s model.
Thomas is now self-sufficient with Causal, and has made over 100 enhancements to the model post-implementation. This lets his team plan more accurately, account for more scenarios and deliver significantly more value across the business.
Thomas is now self-sufficient with Causal, and has made over 100 enhancements to the model post-implementation. This lets his team plan more accurately, account for more scenarios and deliver significantly more value across the business.
The Outcome
Agile FP&A
Prefect’s finance team can now act quickly on requests across the business, letting them work as a strategic partner to the business, informing decisions and advising across the organization.
Prefect’s finance team sends budget vs actual reports in seconds, quickly evaluates and presents scenarios to leadership, and answers investor questions promptly, all while spending a third of the time modelling, with twice the accuracy.
Prefect’s finance team sends budget vs actual reports in seconds, quickly evaluates and presents scenarios to leadership, and answers investor questions promptly, all while spending a third of the time modelling, with twice the accuracy.
Infrastructure built for strategic partnership
Instead of having to hire a team to ‘clunk around in Excel’, Causal has allowed Thomas to defer hiring an FP&A analyst and own the entire FP&A function himself.
As Prefect grows, Thomas looks forward to hiring an FP&A analyst that will have superpowers in Causal. Instead of spending all this time reconciling numbers, they’ll be able to learn and grow faster than many of their peers, and make an impact right from day one.
As Prefect grows, Thomas looks forward to hiring an FP&A analyst that will have superpowers in Causal. Instead of spending all this time reconciling numbers, they’ll be able to learn and grow faster than many of their peers, and make an impact right from day one.
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