Markel改变财务计划，以最大程度地提高经济的增长和盈利能力

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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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.

“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.”

此外，马克尔的先前解决方案还提供了有限的灵活性和复杂的用户体验。系统之外的电子表格需要进行复杂的计算和报告，限制实时功能并引入人为错误的可能性。

马克尔财务高级副总裁亚历克斯·马丁（Alex Martin）评论说：“我们认识到，刷新我们的财务计划解决方案为重新设计了整个财务计划流程以提高效率和提高业务绩效。”“具体来说，我们寻找了一种解决方案，该解决方案将使我们能够在全球范围内建立标准化的流程，同时仍然为每个独特的业务提供当地细微差别。”

Building the best platform

Markel在寻求灵活和防止未来的财务计划解决方案时邀请Anaplan进行概念证明（POC）。

“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.”

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.”

Transforming financial planning

Markel的Anaplan生态系统将其总分类帐，人力资本和数据关系管理系统的数据集成在一起，以支持多个计划过程。为了与最佳实践保持一致，Markel利用Anaplan数据中心作为中央数据存储库。数据中心将使用清洁的数据为下游操作模型提供，这些数据在适当的细节级别汇总。马克尔端到端财务计划环境中的运营模型分为五组，所有这些都允许由于公司的全球性质而进行多种货币的计划和审查：

• Underwriting modelsare 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.
• Controllable expensesare 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.
• The分配模型是将所有公司，共享服务和部门支出分配给适用的企业，产品和法人实体的地方。这些驱动因素也成为马克尔实际分配的基础。
• Theconsolidation model用于将所有信息汇总在一起，以产生完整的损益表。这也是Markel计划其独特业务的地方，例如Markel的保险与保险证券（ILS）业务（该公司是ILS管理领域的全球领导者），投资收益和来自其非保险业务Markel Ventures的收入。合并模型也是公司会计团队以利息，摊销和所得税等项目为中心的信息。
• 马克尔的最新型号，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.

在模型的五个类别,马克尔构建s 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.”

所有维护和开发均由Markel Anaplan卓越中心所有。该企业所有权模型进一步使公司能够迅速适应不断变化的业务需求。

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.”

Anaplan还支持Markel对全球流程的愿景。“ Anaplan使我们能够建立标准化的全球财务流程，同时为我们提供适应每个业务的独特需求的灵活性，” Albright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

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.

诺布尔说：“通过削减将我们的财务计划周期完成一半以上所花费的时间，Anaplan可以帮助我们对市场状况的意外变化更加敏感。”“在不确定的经济中，由于199号大流行造成的经济，具有发现潜在问题并将我们的计划适应的能力使我们处于更强的财务状况。”

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.”