Customer Success: C.F. Martin & Co. (Martin Guitar)

budgeting for continued growth

C. F. Martin & Co. (www.martinguitar.com) has been creating the finest instruments in the world for 182 years.  It continues to innovate, introducing techniques and features that have become industry standards, including X-bracing, the 14-fret guitar and the “Dreadnought” size. One of the world’s leading acoustic instrument makers, Martin guitars are hand-made by skilled craftsmen and women, who use a combination of new design and techniques, along with those introduced by the company founder.

The company is also known for producing high-quality, popular acoustic guitar strings.  These include the Martin SP® LIFESPAN™ line, the fastest-growing treated string in the industry, and the Martin SP line, which uses an industry leading core wire to hold tunings better.

Martin guitars and Martin strings are the instruments and strings of choice for musicians around the world, from the icons of rock, pop, country, folk and bluegrass to those just beginning their careers.  They can be seen across all segments of pop culture, from television to movies, Broadway, books, online, and gracing the covers of popular magazines on newsstands everywhere. Connect with Martin and Martin Strings on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and via www.martinguitar.com and www.martinstrings.com.

The CHALLENGE

Utilizing a budgeting system consisting of numerous Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, and an outdated legacy budgeting system, Martin Guitar wanted to move forward with a system that consolidated these multiple sources of data into one simple to maintain package.

In addition to the multiple systems, Martin Guitar knew they should streamline and optimize their corporate budgeting processes to effectively support their continued growth. This included integrating their sales forecast by product SKU into the budget process, moving away from a complicated employee benefits Excel file to a driver based personnel module, and the ability to have increased visibility into budget centers and costs for financial performance monitoring and reporting.

The Solution

Thanks to the commitment and leadership of Martin Guitar's finance team, Neubrain’s robust budgeting and performance management system, experienced consultants and extensive knowledge of financial planning and budgeting best practices, Martin Guitar and Neubrain achieved the following results:

• Significantly decreased the time span related to the budgeting process by integrating all necessary elements into an all-in-one budgeting system, which includes budgeting for capital projects and assets, revenue and cost planning, personnel budgeting, discretionary budgeting and financial reporting.
• Implemented a robust data interface with Infor SyteLine ERP system, providing nightly upload of system data
• Unified business rules into one centralized database, making calculations fast and reliable.
• Enabled self-service reporting and analysis, where end users can perform drill-down and drill-through functions to answer their specific questions rather than rely on the finance department to clarify results and calculations.
• Enhanced visibility and ease of identifying budget variances, allowing for more time to be spent on the analysis “why”, rather than “what” or “where”.
• System users can also now develop custom reports, dashboards and processes without relying on contractor or IT support. 

The new system allows for a centralized budgeting system that drastically cuts down on budget preparation time and creates a more integrated version of the budget. End users now have a clean, structured interface to monitor discretionary spend, while allowing for both high level and detailed review of information. The finance team can utilize a fully integrated reporting interface to monitor company performance and spend, while easily identifying the source of variances. 

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