Workday is freeing people from slow, unwieldy systems, enabling them to focus on adding value to the business.
Director of Enterprise Resource Planning
Challenges.
Historically, Genius Sports’ teams only had the bandwidth to meet day-to-day demands. This was due to multiple, disparate finance systems and a limited people system.
Efficiency was, therefore, compromised. The Finance team, for example, spent between 15 and 20 days preparing month-end accounts, while the People team found it challenging to provide basic operational data including employee numbers and locations. In 2020, COVID-19 further complicated the situation with most employees required to work remotely at very short notice.
Ahead of its public listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and with aggressive growth plans going forward, access to strategic business information and analysis was essential. There was a strong and growing need for an advanced, integrated platform solution.
Why Workday.
A flexible platform for business-wide improvement.
Genius Sports required a partner with the tools to move it to the next level and beyond. CEO, Mark Locke, immediately recognised that Workday was the solution the company needed.
“Our CEO is a real visionary who knows what he wants,” recalls James Evans, Director of Enterprise Resource Planning. “He’s the driving force behind the entire project, and he was the one who persuaded the executive team that Workday delivered the scale of opportunity that matched the scale of the vision for our development.”
Results.
Empowering people for effectiveness and efficiency.
With Workday, the People team at Genius Sports has been empowered to perform day-to-day tasks more effectively and efficiently. Today, they are increasingly able to work more strategically to achieve improved workforce planning and deployment.
Key tasks have been streamlined. Holiday booking, for example, is now fully digital, replacing a procedure that used paper, photographs and signatures with a simple, one-step process. Onboarding has also been transformed into a smooth, professional process requiring minimal input, but delivering absolute precision around who people are, what they do and where they’re based.
Maximising time spent on strategic priorities.
Liberating the Finance team from a cumbersome and disconnected approach to service delivery is radically increasing the value of its role in achieving the company’s vision. Significantly reducing time spent on reporting and reconciliation is enabling the team to focus on strategic analysis and development.
This in turn is enabling the business to achieve two important objectives. First, Finance is now empowered to provide specialist support and services to the parts of the business that require it. And second, the business has immediate access to essential financial information, increasing the quality of decision-making across the organization.
Driving self-sufficiency across the business.
Workday’s technology has removed a significant bottleneck that restricted the Executive team and other managers from drilling down into reports and investigating what was really going on in the business. Previously, there was no self-service – everything had to go through the Finance team, which was itself, compromised by heavy workloads and cumbersome systems. Now, managers are more self-sufficient, enabling rapid and accurate insight into what is happening in their cost centres and other areas of responsibility.
Thanks to Workday, our management team is gaining valuable insight into what’s really happening in the business, helping them focus strategically on our central aim of growth.
Director of Enterprise Resource Planning