Challenge 

The FP&A team at a professional services firm was inundated with a high volume of ad hoc financial reporting requests from executive leadership and the board. Fulfilling each request often took 1-2 days. 

Lacking KPI dashboards that were standardized or flexible enough to accommodate these one-off, custom reporting needs, the firm relied on complex Excel spreadsheets, which increased the risk of errors. 

To build an optimized reporting target state, the FP&A team explored the possibility of AI. 

How We Helped 

CrossCountry Consulting’s AI Strategy & Transformation experts collaborated closely with FP&A and Operations stakeholders to understand current-state pain points and co-create a new process and technology architecture. The goal was to quickly stand up an AI-enabled reporting solution without introducing new risks or requiring additional IT overhead. The team:

  • Designed and implemented a dual-track reporting strategy that supports standard reporting and ad hoc data requests. 
  • Integrated Power BI and Snowflake Cortex for seamless data flows and compilation of key financial and operational data. 
  • Leveraged AI-powered natural language querying to improve access to dynamic data, which accelerated decision-making. 

Now, the firm’s FP&A teams are querying in real time during operational reviews and strategy meetings rather than spending days aggregating and formatting data. 

Results 

By unlocking real-time decision support, teams can be more hands-on with analysis and strategic decision-making. These AI-enabled “analysts of the future” are now empowered to more effectively inform corporate strategy and add value beyond the balance sheet. 

Success metrics include: 

  • 80% reduction in financial reporting time. 
  • 4X faster analysis cycles. 
  • 40% fewer support tickets for data teams. 
  • 60% less time spent training. 

As the firm continues to experiment with AI, this profitable use case will serve as a roadmap for future transformations across the business.