How Pirum Enhanced Its FP&A Processes with IBM Planning Analytics

IBM Business Analytics Solution – IBM Planning Analytics

Services – Consultancy

About Pirum

Pirum is a leading fintech company specialising in post-trade automation for the securities finance and lending sector. Its platform supports more than 100 financial institutions globally, including investment banks, asset managers, pension funds, insurers and agent lenders.

The Challenge

Pirum’s financial planning and analysis processes were built around a complex, spreadsheet-based model. While this approach had supported the business in its early stages, it became increasingly difficult to manage as Pirum continued to grow. Maintaining version control, managing access, running scenarios and making changes in a transparent way all required significant manual effort. The finance team spent too much time processing numbers and not enough time supporting the wider business with insight.

Pirum needed a more robust and scalable FP&A solution that could retain the flexibility of spreadsheets while introducing control, automation and transparency.

The Solution

Aramar worked closely with Pirum to scope the project and design a new FP&A model using IBM Planning Analytics. To accelerate delivery, the team used Aramar’s Fast Financials approach, which pre-configures key dimensions and settings out of the box.

This reduced the amount of foundational setup required and allowed Pirum to see value quickly, while still retaining the flexibility to adapt the model as their business evolves.

The Results

By the end of the first phase, Pirum had transformed the way it manages FP&A. IBM Planning Analytics now enables Pirum to control access and versions, produce multiple budget scenarios, analyse what-if outcomes and make changes to the model in a clear, explainable way. Many previously manual processes have been automated, reducing risk and improving consistency.

As a result, Pirum’s Financial Controller is now able to spend around 30% more time supporting the business, rather than simply processing numbers. As additional user interfaces are introduced, managers will be able to access information directly, freeing up even more time for value-adding analysis and decision support.