Sizzling Platter Case Study

• Sizzling Platter’s financial planning and analysis team was held back by inefficient tools and manual processes

• A change in leadership brought a new vision: implement the best tools to get the best results

• Calumo automated processes and decreased month-end close timelines by 75%

• With increased planning cadences and better collaboration, Sizzling saved about $2 million per year in capital spending

Sizzling Platter (‘Sizzling’) is a restaurant franchisee headquartered in Utah that was established in 1963 with a mission to provide unparalleled experiences for team members, guests, and brands while driving strong financial performance and becoming the world’s premier franchise growth platform. Today, Sizzling Platter has eight brands, including Little Caesars, Dunkin’ Donuts, Red Robin, Sizzler, and Wingstop. That’s over 750 restaurant franchises spread across two countries and 15 states in the USA.

The Financial Planning and Analysis team at Sizzling is an elite team with well-honed reporting and business modeling skills. However, the tools the FP&A team had to work with were holding them back, leaving them frustrated and in ‘Excel hell.’ Relying on Excel as their one source for FP&A posed a significant challenge. Manual data entry, version control issues, and limited collaboration capabilities created bottlenecks and errors, and left the team struggling to keep up with the demands of a fast-paced business environment. Without the right tools, identifying the root cause of discrepancies was a time-consuming process, delaying critical decisions. Further, the lack of real-time insights and automation made it difficult to pivot quickly and confidently with data-backed strategies. To stay agile and competitive, Sizzling’s FP&A team needed solutions that could go beyond Excel's limitations.

A new CFO brought a change in direction to Sizzling. His vision was to ensure stakeholders could act swiftly and with 100% confidence using trusted data to back up their decisions. Excel-based reporting was never going to be that trusted source. While extremely flexible, Excel could not offer the level of granularity, transparency, control or robustness Sizzling needed to effectively engage its teams with data. According to Jim Roberts, Sizzling’s Director of Financial Planning and Analysis: “With the growth we were pushing for, things had to change. Our CFO reached out to his network, and a few people pointed him to Calumo.” Calumo from insightsoftware provides automated reporting, planning, and budgeting solutions that support extended planning and analysis to enhance performance management. It integrates with all data sources, OPEX, HR, AP, and AR, as well as automates and consolidates financial statements, enables rapid forecasting with pre-built models, and allows for efficient data analysis. The Sizzling team could now collaborate through one source of financial truth.

• Efficiency and accuracy – Automate and streamline manual processes to save time, improve efficiency, and reduce risk and errors.

• Transparency and collaboration – Break down information silos and integrate disparate datasets into a single source of truth. All users can access the same numbers and can be confident of their source.

• Flexible and adaptable – Explore built-in scenario analysis and predictive insights with confidence and share the right information with the right people, at the right time.

Roberts’ team had its first demo of Calumo in September 2015, and the solution was in place within weeks. The results were quick to follow.

Calumo was an edge that Sizzling needed to help it perform at optimum. The benefits can be broken down into four key areas.

1. A Close Process That Emphasizes Performance, Not Spreadsheets

Before Calumo, it took the team around 20 days to close the month-end books. With Calumo, Sizzling has finally met its goal to close the month-end books in five days or fewer. “Calumo was instrumental in helping the team close our books accurately and be able to see the red flags, the high low accounts, and slice through the minutiae of the data to see trends and outliers in a timely fashion,” said Roberts.

2. Better and Faster Reports = Better Decisions Faster

One of the key benefits of closing in five days is the ability to report earnings estimates by department early in the reporting cycle so tactics can be refined immediately. In addition to this, Sizzling has been able to establish weekly reporting routines to minimize surprises for senior managers. Weekly earnings and sales are always available with reliable, up-to-date financial data. Start-of-week reports seamlessly incorporate data from the previous week, reflect any necessary adjustments, and are refreshed in moments—eliminating hours or even days of delays. This has led to a very positive culture shift throughout the organization. Knowing the results are out and constantly up to date means employees can move on with confidence and spend more time driving the company forward rather than arguing over who has the right numbers.

3. Benefits Beyond Finance

The marketing and sales team now have access to near-instant results of promotions because the FP&A team has access to reliable data as it’s arriving. “When we are running a new marketing initiative, we don’t have to settle for a gut instinct ‘I think this is the direction.’ We now know the exact effect of the promotion,” says Roberts. Beyond Sizzling, franchisors can now get access to immediate consolidated feedback on the impact of promotions, food price changes, and other changing market conditions. Roberts notes, “They’ve noticed we understand their business faster and better than anyone else, and now see us as a trusted advisor.”

4. $2 Million Per Annum Saved on Capital Spending

Sizzling opens about 30 new stores a year, and opening a new store is a big commitment financially and in terms of focus. Before Calumo, it was tricky to manage construction costs effectively. With Calumo’s CapEx reporting in place, actual to budget variances on construction have dropped from over 35% to 5%. This sees estimated savings of around $2m a year by providing visibility and transparency while highlighting accountability and getting engagement from the people who can impact the builds day-to-day. Sizzling moved from static, manual spreadsheets to automated Calumo web reports that provide information from high-level dashboards to deep transactional insight with just a few clicks. The result: improved accountability, engagement with performance data, happier teams, happier stakeholders, and real cash savings and benefits.

With Calumo, Sizzling Platter can focus on what they do best, propelling the business forward using trusted and timely data. Calumo has become an extension of the accounting team, providing a reliable, high-performance voice in every management meeting. Whenever management has a question about a department, revenue, costs, or wants to make a forward projection, they can simply use Calumo to make smarter, better decisions. Ready to see how Calumo can help you overcome reporting challenges for optimized planning and analysis? Watch our on-demand webinar now.