Celebrating 25 years of ground-breaking technological innovation, Medidata brings life-changing therapies to market faster. The clinical trial software company uses data from more than 35,000 trials and 10 million patients to help life science and medical device companies reduce development costs and mitigate risks.
Josh Schwartz, CFO of Medidata, says financial and HR management is more complex than ever in today’s fast-paced business environment. Companies must adapt quickly to change and make informed decisions with real-time data. Schwartz says the company leverages AI, streamlines financial management, gains real-time insights, and scales for future growth with Workday.
Maximize AI with a single data model.
Medidata aligned and organized a single data model after it integrated finance, HCM, and planning into the Workday platform. The company better leverages AI to identify patterns and insights that might have been missed when data was siloed.
Medidata also plans to use Workday Illuminate™, the next generation of Workday AI. Illuminate includes Workday Assistant, which answers employees’ questions in natural language and automatically surfaces related content. “The supercharged AI assistant feature means employees can talk in a real, native way to get things done faster and more efficiently,” Schwartz says.
Increased efficiency.
Schwartz says the company has saved time, money, and resources with a unified platform. “I describe it as a quilt,” Schwartz says. “As you shift from a product organization and move to a platform, there’s a value you create. There’s different processes you work through. You create that exponential value for your customer by allowing them to use that now-longer quilt where each single piece stands out individually. You create a blanket, where everything is available.”
Medidata saves $1.46 million annually in costs with a unified system. “We built a single organization that works across HR, finance, and other departments,” Schwartz says. “Before [Workday], we lost time, efficiency, and value when we moved through each application differently.”
Medidata has also improved its bottom line. “We’re up 73% in our revenue attribution, yet we have fewer people in finance today than we did four years ago,” Schwartz says.
Streamlined cycle times.
The company reduced its financial close cycle from seven days to two days with Workday Financial Management. It also streamlined the spend process because user profiles, business operations controls, and analytics are in a single system.
Schwartz says Workday Spend Management provides:
- Consistency across data, security, and global processes for enhanced control and efficiency
- Real-time spend visibility
- Improved reporting
- Streamlined AP cycle time for better invoice management and improved cash control
- Seamless requisition-to-purchase order process
Increased control over cash spend.
Schwartz says over 80 percent of invoices were paid a week early. “Now we have almost 100 percent paid within three days of the invoice date,” Schwartz says. “Vendors are still getting paid on time. But we shifted our ability to create and generate cash and better control our spend.”
Decreased audit time.
Medidata also reduced the external audit time from 26 weeks to 20 weeks with Workday. “Now, our audit and executive teams spend more time thinking, communicating, talking, and creating relationships across the organization,” Schwartz says. “Our time is spent much more effectively and efficiently because our platform supports it.”
Timely insights for leadership.
Medidata leaders gain insights into forecasting, scenario planning, and budgeting with Workday Adaptive Planning. “My FP&A leadership team stays focused on providing different what-if scenarios as the business evolves with Workday Adaptive Planning,” Schwartz says. “They do this in real time while working with our accounting team and our HR team, which creates a deeper relationship because it’s all within one platform.”
Scaled for future growth.
By adopting a unified platform approach and prioritizing innovation, Schwartz says other midsize companies can achieve similar outcomes with Workday.
“Even if you’re a small or midsize company, you get the same quality enterprise technology that Fortune 500 businesses use,” Schwartz says.
Our accountants and FP&A teams no longer focus on processes. They spend more time coming up with new ways to create value for our stakeholders.
CFO