Loughborough university achieves first class financial performance with MHR

The partnership will see Loughborough implement cutting-edge financial workforce planning software, powered by IBM Planning Analytics, to save an anticipated 30% in operational costs and cut wasted administrational hours.

It will also generate long-term financial forecasts up to 10 years into the future.

Phase one of the implementation is estimated to save over 900 hours of staff time over the year, on producing the annual budget, quarterly forecasts and monthly reporting of actuals with variance analysis. The anticipated resource saving, equivalent to 0.6FTE, can now be deployed more strategically for the University in much more value added tasks.

As well as saving hundreds of hours on administration, teams using the systems can automatically create vacant positions for job roles that are not closed, produce automatic monthly reforecasts using latest staff data including any pay awards, maternity periods and pension changes, and has the ability to predict performance up to a decade ahead. The ability to model different scenarios will also be of strategic benefit, particularly with the uncertainty over pension changes and Brexit impacts.

Adele Slater, Senior Finance Business partner at Loughborough University said: “As one of the UK’s leading academic institutions, it is vital we ensure high standards of financial planning, workforce management and reporting across the entire organisation. Our partnership with MHR means we can improve our processes significantly, cutting down on time-consuming administration and freeing up valuable resources to support the University’s growth and long-term goals, focusing on what we do best, which is providing a world class educational experience and excellent results for our students.”

“The partnership with MHR has been really beneficial to the whole team and although we are in the early days of bedding in the solutions, our finance team are excited about the potential of the system and the time savings that can be achieved. We have set specific measurable goals so we can quickly get a picture of the benefits.”

Nick Felton, Senior Vice President at MHR said: “Loughborough University provides very high standards of education to students from the UK and around the world. It was clear the organisation needed a solution to save time and money and enable accurate decision-making. The solutions are designed to allow staff to concentrate on driving the University forward as the student market becomes ever more competitive.”