What does the future hold? Where are you going in the month, quarter or year ahead? For sales and operations teams, answering those questions can play a critical role in helping to set sales goals and build successful processes to meet them. Goals and processes that help your entire organization thrive. That’s why the best sales planning processes start with a sales forecast. Sales forecasting helps you use the data and expertise you have to predict where you’re going to go, allowing you a better look into the future and giving you a stronger understanding of what you need to do to empower those objectives. When used correctly, a sales forecast offers you a roadmap that can enable your team, align your sales and operations planning (S&OP) processes and catapult your entire organization forward. Read on to discover the best way to integrate forecasting into your sales and business plans. What Is Sales Forecasting? Sales forecasting combines historical sales data with market projections and industry insight to predict what your salespeople will sell in a given week, month, quarter or year. It helps you set goals, improve your sales budgeting and know when to hire, while also offering you a view into potential issues that may affect your sales projections. In turn, it empowers you with the information you need to try to get ahead of them. But to get the most out of your sales forecasting, you need to draw on the right data and ensure your forecast is as accurate as possible. You also need to align your sales team based on the results so that everyone knows where they’re going—and doesn’t end up somewhere else instead. So how do you go about doing that? And more importantly, how do you make sure you get it right? 4 Steps To Preparing an Accurate Sales Forecast Creating a solid sales forecast isn’t always the easiest of tasks. But the best strategic sales plan examples will get your sales and operations teams where they need to be. Which means making sure your sales forecast is as accurate as possible is critical to the success of the sales planning process.  To make sure yours hits the mark, follow these steps:    1. Formalize your sales process Building a formalized sales process helps ensure everyone is on the same page, with a baseline in place to ensure everyone on your team better understands the entire sales journey. This includes the steps your buyers take towards their final sale, knowing what it takes for a prospect to move from one stage to the next and making sure everyone is working with all of the same definitions along the way. That all may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many companies have a sales process without a clearly defined exit criteria to move them from one stage to the next.  To formalize your sales process, then, start by establishing a better understanding of your process as it already exists. How long (on average) does it take to close a deal? How much time do prospective customers stay at each stage? How do other teams, such as marketing and operations, contribute to your sales goals? Creating a single source of truth will create better transparency and help you understand the sales journey more clearly, while letting you determine the level of support you should be offering throughout the sales process. Only with this understanding in place can you start predicting how future buyers are going to move through your sales cycle—and plan for how your sales team can help them at every step. 2. Consider the data By looking at historical sales data such as your conversion rates, average contract value and sales activity data—among other metrics—you’ll be able to get a better idea of what a typical sales cycle looks like in your organization and how individual members of your team contribute towards it. This data will help inform the forecasting process. Meanwhile, the data you have available will also influence the forecasting method you choose to use (more on that later) and determine whether you can use tools such as predictive analytics to help with your predictions. But your sales history shouldn’t be the only data that factors into your planning—at least not if you want your forecast to be as accurate as possible. Market and industry shifts will also come into play, as will the revenue targets you’re hoping to accomplish. Your sales planning could be affected if your competitor releases a new product, for instance, or if the economy shifts. You may also need to accommodate for sales slowdowns,  take a different approach if there have been regulatory changes that affect your particular market or hire new sales representatives if you’re going after significantly higher revenue targets than in the past. It’s important to keep on top of those types of influences in order to get a fuller picture of where your sales may go. 3. Set quotas The next step to building a sales forecast is to start putting all of that data to work, building out quotas for each member of your team—giving them set goals to work by and creating a baseline to use as a comparison in your sales forecast.  Quotas are usually derived from historical data and top-level revenue targets, but don’t just look at that data in aggregate. There are often natural trends in sales performance throughout the year, including regular, slow or busy periods that may change by region. When you’re creating your quarterly or monthly quotas, then, keep in mind those natural peaks and valleys and how they might contribute to your individual and company goals. Also consider operations-level data and the trends it reveals on territory and segment performance, merging that with top-level targets to spread your ultimate goals appropriately. 4. Determine the best forecasting method(s) for you How you approach your sales forecasting will depend on a variety of factors, from the size of your sales team and maturity of your business and forecasting capabilities, to the data you have available to you. We’ll go over the most popular methods available in the next section, but getting the most out of your forecasting efforts may mean using more than one to inform your future goals. Whatever the case, once you choose the best method(s) for your business and start the sales forecasting process, you’ve still got more to do. Ensuring accuracy means continually evolving that process and making sure you're pulling on the best data to get to the best results.  Achieving success also means keeping your entire team in the loop—using your forecasting efforts to inform the feedback you give them and keeping them accountable to your overall goals. By bringing in the entire sales and operations team, you’ll make sure you have the support you need to meet those goals—and put everyone on the path towards them. Sales Forecasting Methods As already mentioned, there are a variety of sales forecasting methods you can choose from to help support your sales planning efforts. Read on to learn about three of the most popular approaches. Qualitative Forecasting Methods Like the name suggests, qualitative forecasting methods rely on qualitative data—that is, observations, experience and instinct-led insights—as opposed to quantitative data that’s more numbers based. This kind of forecasting draws on the expertise of experienced managers and consultants as well as other sources such as customer survey results. Qualitative forecasting can be used when you don’t have a lot of reliable data to work with, and/or can supplement the data you do have to account for market, product, regulatory or industry changes you know will change your sales forecast but aren’t able to quantify. It gives you the flexibility to look at areas of your sales plan where numbers may not exist. This type of forecasting requires experienced team members or consultants that are able to use that experience to predict customer behaviors and patterns ahead. Just be aware: since it’s based largely on personal perspective, there may be blindspots you don’t recognize until too late. It’s important to understand where those biases may exist. Time Series Forecasting While qualitative forecasting is less reliant on hard data, time series forecasting—a popular type of quantitative forecasting—requires years’ worth of it for the most accurate results. By drawing on a wealth of historical data, it allows you to better understand past performance and how sales performance is changing. By examining that data over time, time series forecasting lets you see any patterns or trends that may exist: for example, the effects of sales promotions, seasonal differences, changing growth rates and so on. With the assumption that those patterns and trends are likely to repeat themselves in the future, this information can help fuel your sales forecast and allow you to be better prepared for what’s ahead. Where this type of forecasting sometimes falters, though, is when your market or business environment changes and historical data no longer applies in the same way. Causal Forecasting Models An even more sophisticated method of forecasting, causal models rely on a combination of data and analysis to identify the causal relationships that exist in your sales pipeline. Causal forecasting may incorporate sales data, market surveys and even the data from your time series analysis to forecast future results. By assuming a cause-and-effect relationship between independent variables, causal forecasting looks at all of the factors that may have an impact on future outcomes to predict future sales scenarios. Effective for both short- and medium-term forecasting, it can work well alongside what-if style analysis, but requires a large amount of data if you’re going to get effective results. This type of forecasting also depends on consistent relationships between the variables you look at—if those relationships change, causal forecasting becomes less effective. Integrating Forecasting Into Your S&OP  Sales forecasting is just the start, though. To put it to work successfully and truly enable your entire team towards the goals you’re setting, you need to integrate that forecasting into your S&OP process.  S&OP incorporates all parts of your business, for a big picture view of your entire operation— including marketing, finance and operations. By extending your sales planning through the entire process, you remove any departmental silos and get every team working towards your goals. After all, your sales forecast isn’t much use if you don’t have the internal infrastructure in place to achieve those objectives. You need marketing leads, inventory for your team to sell and the reps available to onboard your new customers. That takes a team effort. Your sales forecast is the first step to building that S&OP roadmap, coordinating your future sales projections with the rest of your organization and putting each department on the path towards them. And it’s an important step—one that can lead to increased profits, better customer service, quicker response times and more. 

When you’re building out or updating your company’s annual budget, getting feedback from cross-functional stakeholders is a crucial part of the process. Regardless of whether your finance team uses a top-down or bottom-up approach, non-finance contributors will always have to make their own budget inputs.  Vena 365 Connect makes budget inputs a lot easier thanks to a refreshed user interface for contributors from across your business. We’ve improved Vena’s usability so you can collaborate with every department and deliver more reliable budgets— but without all the manual effort. In this article, we’ll walk you through the new contributor experience in Vena 365 Connect. But first, let’s make it clear what Vena 365 Connect actually is, with some context regarding why we even launched these updates in the first place. What Is Vena 365 Connect? Vena 365 Connect is a Complete Planning platform that brings business data from across your organization into a secure, cloud-based environment. It’s a more user-friendly version of Vena that integrates with Microsoft 365, which means Excel users on both Windows and Mac can create reports and distribute budgeting templates seamlessly. Why Did We Launch Vena 365 Connect? We launched Vena 365 Connect for two primary reasons: To ensure Mac users aren’t limited in their use of our solution.   To provide budget contributors with clearer instructions and context around how they should be executing their budget inputs in Vena. If you’re an existing Vena customer, you already know that our platform leverages a native Excel interface. But you also know cross-functional budget contributors may not be as Excel-savvy as you are—so that’s why we’ve updated the experience with a simpler, more user-friendly interface. See for yourself below! How Vena 365 Connect Makes Budgeting Easier For Cross-Functional Contributors In addition to the new Mac compatibility, the most noteworthy feature of Vena 365 Connect is a slick new sidebar contributors can see when they work on a template.  Let’s say, for example, that you’re a marketing manager updating your advertising budget. This is what you would see when you open the OpEx template for your marketing department in Vena:   The sidebar is divided into three distinct tabs: Each of these sections provides a simplified set of functions your contributors can take advantage of as they prepare their budgets for review and approval. Keep on reading for a full breakdown of each one. 1. Instructions and Documents Make It Clear What Contributors Need To Work On As you open up your marketing department’s OpEx template, everything you need to do is laid out clearly in the Instructions and Documents section. Admins can make the instructions as simple or as detailed as they need to, but they’ll always be displayed here to avoid any confusion for contributors. This is what you would see when you look at the Instructions and Documents tab in the marketing OpEx template:   As you can see, the marketing manager needs to submit all their budget inputs for review and approval. Now it’s time to show you what that looks like with Vena 365 Connect.  2. Data Input Tools Make Adjusting Line Item Details Simple When you open up the Data Input Tools tab, you’ll have the option to add or remove line item details from your budgeted values. So if you need to make a distinction between print and digital spends in your total advertising budget, all it takes is a couple of quick clicks.   Once you’ve saved those inputs back to Vena, the new numbers will be applied across your dataset automatically—ultimately sparing you the hassle of copying and pasting those values yourself. Admins will then be prompted to review your work before it’s finalized.  3. Data Analysis Tools Tell the Full Story Behind Each Number Once your contributors have submitted their budgets for final review, managers can use Vena’s Data Analysis Tools to uncover the story those numbers are telling them. Let’s say you see a particularly large value somewhere and you need to know where it came from. The Drill Saves function brings up an audit trail so you can see exactly who made the input and when—giving you 100% visibility into everything that’s happening with your numbers.    You can also see the individual transactions that roll up to any value with the Drill Transactions function in Vena 365 Connect. The data you’d see here depends on the hierarchy structure in your data model, but all member values would be displayed in a separate Excel tab.  This is really helpful for explaining discrepancies or variances to your management team, because all the context you’d need is available with the touch of a button. And when you always have reliable data at your fingertips whenever you need it, you’ll always be well-equipped to lead your business in the right direction. Experience Vena 365 Connect in Action Vena 365 Connect is now available to everyone—but only if your team is already using Microsoft 365. To learn more about our platform and to see Vena 365 Connect in action, just check out the link below and take it for a spin yourself! (Current Vena customers can click here to ask your CSM for more info.)

The pandemic hit the North American insurance workforce hard, with 67% of insurers reporting furloughs and 68% reporting layoffs. More than half of these companies reduced insurance agent commission rates and other compensation while another third planned to do the same. There were similar effects on raises and bonuses, while most promotions were frozen.  Post-pandemic things are unlikely to change. Rapidly shifting distribution models and other financial pressures suggest that insurers and their finance departments must look to further rationalization to ensure operational and financial stability. In fact, according to a recent Deloitte survey of insurance executives, 39% of respondents believed they would need further rationalization of compensation and headcount.  But rationalization isn’t just about cuts. It’s also about designing creative solutions to drive revenue growth, increase operational efficiency, retain top producers and reduce risk. Many of these solutions are driven by innovative insurance commission rate structures focused on critical KPIs. However, insurance sales compensation is notoriously complex. Here is what you need to know.  Tie Insurance Sales Compensation to Business Goals and KPIs   The days when compensation was determined by annual or semi-annual reviews with managers and dictated by politics and the bottom line are over. New approaches to compensation link it directly to KPIs and the data tracked for each KPI by your finance department. Whether you are planning to scale, looking to retain customers or sales staff or hoping to increase revenue, your KPIs should reflect your intentions. And so too must the sales compensation plan that drives each of these metrics.  Insurance Commission Rates Commissions are the lynchpin of compensation in the insurance industry and can come in various forms, all of which are tied directly to sales KPIs or metrics. Commission rates will often vary according to product and according to a salesperson’s experience and production. Products with higher profit margins, such as group life insurance, will usually garner higher commission rates as a company passes some of that higher profit to its salesforce. Companies often pay their highest producers 100% commission so production is another important KPI for insurance companies to track.  Upfront or first-year commissions are attached to the initial sale and are generally designed to promote growth and revenue. Trailing or residual commissions are also often linked to policies and these payout for several years as customers renew their policies. These commissions provide salespeople with an incentive to perform periodic reviews of policies and at the same time help ensure insurance companies meet their customer retention goals.  When a policy ages or a salesperson retires or leaves a company, agents may also be assigned a service fee to ensure loyal customers a certain level of service on their policies. While these are not really commissions, they do provide servicing agents with a specific percentage—often just 1 or 2%—of the renewal fee. This servicing can include periodic reviews as well as assistance with claims or the reporting process. Insurance companies will also include a chargeback or clawback clause in their compensation packages to protect revenue goals. Essentially, this means that if a salesperson earns commission in advance on the sale of a subscription, they must pay a portion of the commission back if a customer cancels the subscription before the end of a specified term.  Chargebacks can be tricky. While they protect the company and its customers from overly aggressive salespeople, they can also provide some unwelcome surprises for good salespeople and that in turn can adversely affect morale. There are also legal considerations regarding clawbacks, particularly in states such as California, so carefully check the rules for your state or province.   Insurance Commission Structures  There are also several forms of commission structures. Each is best suited to a specific product type and designed to help the company focus on a unique set of KPIs.  Heaped commission structures are most commonly used for individual life insurance. In this structure, paid commissions are highest on the sale of a new policy and considerably lower for renewals. This structure helps companies with KPIs or outcomes targeting growth in sales volume or new customers.  A level commission structure provides the same commission rates for both new clients and renewals. This structure addresses KPIs that focus on customer retention efforts. Group life insurance, such as that sold to employee groups or unions, where customer retention translates into significant profits, will often employ level commissions. In the third type of commission structure, known as levelized, insurance companies pay higher commissions for new clients than renewals. However, the difference between the two is not as significant as with a heaped structure. These keep some focus on retention efforts while still incentivizing new sales.  Other Forms of Sales Compensation for Insurance  While commission is perhaps the most significant form of compensation for insurance salespeople, there are several other forms of compensation to consider. Bonuses can be attached to specific metrics, such as sales targets, long-term employment or even maintaining certain commission levels. These can also come in the form of contingent commissions tied to specific metrics or supplemental commissions tied to things such as profitability, premium retention or premium growth. Bonuses serve as both a retention effort and to incentivize sales efforts.  Salespeople are also likely to receive company benefits, including profit-sharing incentives and access to support staff and equipment. Finally, compensation packages for insurance employees will often include an expense allowance for equipment purchase or even office space.  Challenges of Distribution and the Need To Innovate The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated long-brewing changes in the insurance industry, particularly a move to remote or virtual distribution. This, too, is driving a new look at compensation structures as salespeople struggle with lead generation and other issues critical to their revenue.  Many companies are, for example, investing in a team approach by allowing for split commissions and customer information data and tools sharing. This will enable agents to team up with others who may have different product experience and help each extend their customer reach. Others are expanding distribution partnerships by linking with marketing organizations and developing affinity relationships, which help agents, particularly virtual agents, positively impact scale and revenue.  Investing in enablers is also critical to compensation structures. These can include digital tools for the agents and customer tools, both of which can increase upselling and cross-selling opportunities for agents. And, more importantly, enablers can help with critical lead generation. According to a McKinsey study, 60% of agents were willing to pay between 0.5 and 2.0% of their annual income for enablers leading to quality leads.  Data is also crucial to designing the best compensation plan for your workforce. It does little good locked away in a legacy system or a filing cabinet. Quick access to data means insurers can respond quickly to changing customer demands, identify potential churn and candidates for cross-selling or upselling and develop opportunities for agents.  Tying all of this data to KPIs allows insurers to develop the best compensation plan to help them maintain a strong salesforce and meet company goals for growth. Streamline the process with Vena’s Insurance solutions. 

Climate change, an exploding housing market, and the aftereffects of the pandemic are all contributing to unpredictability in insurance markets. With potential economic stresses putting a strain on capital reserves and liquidity, insurers are under pressure to deliver for stakeholders and consumers. “Optimizing cost structures and strategically prioritizing investments” is critical write analysts in EY’s 2021 Global Insurance Outlook.   Unfortunately, many insurers are not as prepared as they could be. A recent Deloitte global insurance outlook survey found that 79% of industry executives agreed, that “their insurer has been challenged to plan for and invest in targeted areas where they can have a competitive advantage post-COVID-19”. However, only 25% believe their companies have a “clear vision and action plan to achieve financial resilience.” Now that insurance firms have survived the pandemic, they must pivot to thrive.  To thrive, you must have clear insight into your finances and make mission-critical decisions driven by real-time, continuously updated KPIs. This is where an insurance dashboard can really help.  What Is an Insurance Dashboard? KPI dashboards provide instant and real-time access to all your critical financials. They deliver both raw data and visualization, reporting, modeling and analysis, providing you with a clear view of your numbers and deeper insight into those numbers.  But insurance dashboards are only as good as the financial KPIs they include. While some data is intriguing, it might not be informative. You don’t have time to waste on interesting data that provides little insight into your company’s financial situation or fails to inform company strategy. Focusing on the data that provides you with an understanding you can leverage is crucial to your growth and success. Here are 15 financial KPIs every insurer should be including on their metrics dashboard.  1. New and Renew Gross Written Premiums Tracking written and earned premiums provides a clear picture of past, current and future revenue in the short term. This is a critical component for assessing your revenue and plotting future growth. This metric should include: Gross written premiums which are your total premiums before deductions for reinsurance and ceding commissions. These premiums are not necessarily collected premiums, but rather the gross policy premiums you have contracted with clients. These gross earned premiums  account for the revenue you’ve already earned or the expired portion of the insurance contract. Ceded written and ceded earned premiums that you’ve contracted out to other insurers.  Net premiums which provide insight into how much of your premium revenue your company will get to retain for the risks you assume as an insurer.  Unearned premium reserves can tell you, at a glance, how much you would lose if all outstanding contracts were canceled.  2. Losses and Loss Ratios Losses and loss ratios allow you to estimate losses and determine the size of your loss reserves. The gross insured losses you have accumulated, ceded incurred losses and any adjustments you make to your loss reserves should be tracked to provide comprehensive insight into actual and potential losses. Loss ratios will show you how your premiums stack up against your losses and tell you how these numbers are trending in real time.  These KPIs should also include your gross incurred losses or the total amount of paid claims and loss reserves at any given time. Finally, your ceded ratio—ceded insurance balances measured against policyholder surplus—will help you visualize just how reliant you are on others assuming your portfolio risks.  3. Commission Rates  These KPIs help you identify top performers in sales, but you can also use these numbers to compare against industry averages for similar businesses.  4. Ceding Ratios  This KPI provides insurers with a clear understanding of their risk related to reliance on ceded or reinsured policies. You can see just how reliant you are on ceding policies and whether you are too dependent upon a single reinsurer for your portfolio of ceded policies.  5. Ceded Recoverables Also known as reinsurance recoverables, this KPI helps you understand how much reimbursement you can expect from your contracted reinsurance companies. This can include paid and unpaid losses and loss adjustment expenses, such as amounts you may receive for unsettled or unreported claims.  6. Average Weighted Commission Strategizing for the future involves both actual and projected numbers. Average weighted commission rates apply calculations of the estimated chance of closing opportunities to all of your open opportunities, helping you understand what you stand to earn from potential sales opportunities.  7. Net Claims Change in Case Reserves Case reserves are an estimate for the amount that you can expect to pay for a specific claim. Underestimating or overestimating case reserves can pose problems for insurers, so having eyes on the net claims change in case reserves is critical.  8. New Policy Applications As a measure of sales growth, this KPI informs you, at a glance, exactly how many potential new sales you have in the pipeline. 9. Number of Renewed Policies   In addition to new policy applications, you will want to monitor the number of policies renewed by existing clients. This KPI is a good indication of customer experience.   10. Decline Rate This KPI tracks the number of rejected claims and rejected policy renewals against the number of received applications and renewals and presents it as a rate.  11. Average New Policy Premiums  An informative and easily understood KPI, this metric illustrates the average premium rates for new policies sold over a period, such as per quarter or annually, and is key for strategizing growth. 12. Policies for Renewal How many policies have reached expiration and are eligible for renewal is a critical KPI to track for informing sales and customer service initiatives and decisions.  13. New Business Premium  This is the premium acquired from new policies for a specific amount of time. It’s a way to measure and track expansion or growth and the potential for scale.  14. Renew Retention Ratio This KPI tracks the ratio of policyholders renewing policies to those who opt to end their contracts. This is another excellent measurement of customer satisfaction.  15. Quota Share Ceded Premiums Another indicator of risk exposure and potential profit, quota share ceded premiums KPIs provide you with a measurement of the premiums you can expect to retain from your reinsurance agreements.  Track the Right Metrics  Making data-driven decisions is a key success indicator, but it can be a challenge to know what to focus on with the wealth of available data. Tracking the right financial metrics is crucial to the success of your insurance business, helping to maximize output, fuel growth and ensuring that you pivot, when needed. It’s also critical to providing shareholders and other key stakeholders with the visibility they demand. By focusing on key metrics or KPIs, you will have access to effective and efficient mission-critical data when you need it. 

According to our CFO Darrell Cox, in order to be a great CFO, you need to be action oriented and growth minded—proactively looking for insights and leading the change by driving forward-looking business motions. In this blog, we highlight Darrell’s Evolution of the Strategic CFO and his five key principles on being an agile CFO for your business.  Being an Agile and Strategic CFO According to Darrell, being an agile CFO means maximizing your organization's success by mitigating risk during down times. As most organizations experienced during the pandemic, it’s important to have a plan, but as Darrell highlights, the ability to move quickly and make a change if the plan doesn’t benefit the business is important. “Your plan is going to be wrong one way or another as you introduce risk. Agile planning is operationalized across the business to achieve short-term goals and longer-term outcomes. It's not just a budget, it's a process. It enables the company to move and maneuver to make changes around them.” In case you missed Darrell’s talk at Vena Nation week, he highlights his 5 principles of the agile CFO, which takes a lot of influence from his original 7 Principles of the Agile CFO. His 5 principles represent a shorter methodology for agility. The principles leverage the term “agile” as an acronym that describes the different steps of becoming an agile CFO, which are reflected below: The 5 Principles of the Agile CFO: 1. Act and drive action. The “a” in agility represents acting quickly and driving action. It means having a positive impact as a leader and always thinking about how and when you say or do something with your team so that you achieve your desired result. 2. Grow and think big. The “g” represents growing and thinking big. Darrell highlights that when you think about setting something up or analyzing something, ask yourself, are you learning from it?  3. Iterate and plan forward. The “i” represents continuous iteration and planning ahead. As Darrell points out, a CFO does not focus on one single budget, but many small connected plans that lead to an ultimate objective. 4. Leverage technology. The “l” represents leveraging technologies that assist in the day to day. Technology can really enable leaders to amplify their impact. 5. Engage, align and enable. The “e” represents engaging, aligning and enabling teams. Darrell points out that it’s important to engage your audience so that they become aligned and are enabled to achieve and be the best that they can be. It’s also important to be approachable and human in our role. It means being a great storyteller in order to get your team working together and moving forward as one team. Be the Best Agile Leader That You Can Be As Darrell put’s it, being the best agile leader that you can be means thinking big and not just focusing on the details. A strategic and agile leader needs to be finding clues in the details about how to drive a great business. As business and operations professionals it’s important to be agile and proactively looking for insights and changes, so that you can continue to drive your business forward.

As part of Vena's birthday we created a timeline for you to enjoy, check it out: A Decade of Planning To Grow: Milestones and Highlights from Vena’s First 10 Years As we celebrate Vena’s 10th birthday, it’s time to look back and reflect on the growth we’ve accomplished so far. This is how Vena evolved from a three-founder startup in 2011 into a cloud FP&A leader with 900+ customers in 2021. April 2011: Longtime friends Rishi Grover and George Papayiannis launch the company. They begin building the software out of George’s parents’ basement.  August 2011: Don Mal joins as the CEO and third co-founder. Vena is officially born! December 2011: After building the original product, refining the go-to-market strategy and hiring some early employees, Vena brings on First Wind Energy as its first customer. June 2012: George and the Product and Technology team launch the first version of Vena’s OLAP financial database, ultimately laying the foundation for long-term growth and innovation. October 2012: Vena moves its office to Islington and Bloor in Toronto after raising $3 million in funding from close friends and family. This also included an angel investment from a PE firm, Klass Capital.  2013 - 2015: The sales team continues to shatter its revenue and customer acquisition targets. Vena signs some huge clients including Nando’s, McDonald’s Canada, Santander and Kobo.  July 2014: The Product and Technology team successfully transform Vena from an on-premise application into a cloud-based SaaS solution. July 2016: Vena secures its first major funding round, a $30 million Series A investment from Centana Growth Partners. May 2017: Hundreds of customers and prospects gather in New Orleans for VenaNOLA, the company’s first-ever user conference. September 2017: More customers + more employees = the need for more space! Vena moves offices again to its current global headquarters at 2 Fraser Ave. in Toronto’s Liberty Village.  December 2018: Vena caps off yet another record-breaking year with enhancements to the modeling, workflow, integration and data mapping features. January 2019: JMI Equity leads a $115 million funding round as Vena continues to attract top-tier talent and grow its market share.  August 2019: Don steps down as Vena’s CEO as the company begins to adopt a more targeted product-led growth strategy. SaaS veteran Hunter Madeley takes the helm as CEO as Vena begins to prepare for a period of aggressive expansion. May 2020: The COVID-19 pandemic sparks the birth of Vena Nation week, a fully-virtual conference for the entire finance and operations community. Vena unveils Plan To Grow™ shortly after, an innovative online learning hub and CPE-accredited content platform. November 2020: Vena launches the Vena Preview—its first product-led growth initiative—and begins work on additional enhancements to drive demand for the business. February 2021: Vena forms a partnership with the Kansas City Chiefs in order to champion digital transformation in the sports and live entertainment industry. Vena also launches pre-configured solutions for SaaS, banking, education and other key market segments. April 2021: Vista Equity Partners leads another $300 million funding round, giving Vena the momentum it needs to continue thriving for the next decade and beyond. May 2021: Vena’s Product and Technology team prepare for major releases including Vena 365 Connect and embedded dashboarding with PowerBI.

Here at Vena, we love Excel and we know you do too. So we partnered with Excel MVP Punra Duggirala, also known as Chandoo, who is passionate about data analytics and visualization. Chandoo has developed a platform for sharing knowledge about Microsoft Excel, Power BI and new ways of presenting data. We also partnered with long-time Excel MVP Liam Bastick, who is the Director of SumProduct and also a chartered accountant and chartered management accountant specializing in financial modeling and strategic advice. Both of these Excel experts offer their latest best practices, tips and tricks around Excel. When you work with Excel on a daily basis, there’s always room to grow and learn more. Read on for our top three Excel best practices for building effective spreadsheets to save you time and keep you  organized. 1. Always Follow the CRaFT Principles While Building Spreadsheets The CRaFT methodology comes from Liam Bastick and refers to the four key principles for building effective spreadsheets. CRaFT is actually an acronym and each letter represents a specific principle to follow while building your spreadsheets. Consistency  The “C” refers to consistency, and as Liam points out, it means that when spreadsheets are built with consistency in mind, they should be incorporating pre-defined formats and styles in a coherent way. So for example, this means ensuring all formulas are copied uniformly across ranges and also presenting periodic data and formulas in columns consistently, establishing similar structures for similar spreadsheets. Consistency allows for fewer mistakes, promotes model integrity and makes it easier for developers (and users) to understand models quickly. This also makes it easier when you are collaborating with other team members and need to generate and update reports quickly. Robustness The “R” refers to robustness, essentially that models need to be free from errors, mathematically accurate and readily auditable. Liam points out that this principle is key since it keeps models simple, consistent and transparent for you and your team. You and your team can work efficiently since there are established formulas and no hidden macros. Flexibility The “F” refers to flexibility and reminds users that all models should have the structure to provide invaluable “what if?” scenario analysis. Keeping spreadsheets flexible saves you and your team valuable time later if an analysis needs to be conducted. Transparency Lastly, the “T” refers to arguably one of the most important principles—transparency. Spreadsheets need to be clear, concise and cohesive so that others can understand them when working collaboratively. According to Liam, modelers should create their calculations and output in a user-friendly way. 2. Use Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts To Save Time According to Excel wizard Chandoo, leveraging keyboard and mouse shortcuts while using Excel is key to saving time and minimizing stress (especially when working with large data spreadsheets). In fact, he highlights how getting around spreadsheets easily and quickly through keyboard and mouse shortcuts allows you to keep data prep and clean up in mind when designing your spreadsheet. The easier a spreadsheet is to navigate using shortcuts is really dependent on how you set up the spreadsheet from the first step.  That’s why it’s important to put the time and effort into designing your spreadsheet effectively first (see step 1 above). As finance and operations professionals (and even outside of that), you’re probably leveraging Excel and navigating through different sets of data. Leveraging shortcuts not only saves you time, it helps you get around your spreadsheet in a smarter and more efficient way. For example, to navigate through your spreadsheets quickly and easily and to get to a specific point within a spreadsheet, select the end key and any arrow on your keyboard to bring you to the last cell of a sequence in the arrow's pointing direction. 3. Tell a Story Through Your Spreadsheets Telling the right story with your data is key to informing your teams on the latest business updates and making changes if and when necessary. We’ve highlighted how going beyond the numbers to shape a powerful narrative with your data is an important skill for finance leaders to master. According to Liam, it’s important to have a narrative in mind while building out your spreadsheets in Excel. In Liam’s experience, he has found that building a narrative into your spreadsheets and data has been shown to increase comprehension, interest, engagement, recall and it also eases the comprehension of data when it’s been reviewed. As Liam says, “The importance of good storytelling is that it’s not all about one thing.” This is especially true when you’re working with budgets and organizing them through Excel reporting. Liam also argues that when it comes to any kind of report building, “understanding one-offs is critical to understanding business performance and setting financial statements. You’ve got to maintain a register of the one-off items, both positive and negative, for the current and prior periods to see the actual trends.” This is key to managing both on a day-to-day level as well as strategically for the long term for any team. The Power of Excel Whether you’re a finance professional or business leader, you’ve probably leveraged Excel in some capacity. Maybe you need to build a budget report, create a financial forecast or just organize your team's vacation time. Excel is so powerful for your day to day and Vena is the only Complete Planning platform that combines enterprise-class functionality with the comfort, flexibility and power of Excel. Our Growth Engine technology features a native Excel interface, so you can use the tool you already know to do things you’ve only imagined. The point being is that Excel is an integral part of the day to day for most teams and it’s a tool that helps keep us organized and working efficiently.

You’re probably wondering what Excel Nerds Unite is all about. Well, this community came out of Vena’s desire to bring together Excel nerds and enthusiasts alike. We wanted to create a community that celebrated Excel nerd culture. As part of our official launch, we built a dedicated website where Excel nerds and enthusiasts can unite together. The website will continue to grow into a space for Excel-related content—blogs, spreadsheets, Excel memes and puns and more. And Excel Nerds Unite is also part of Vena Nation week, which is our annual virtual conference for finance, operations and business leaders to excel together.  There are some great things you can look forward to that Excel Nerds Unite will be doing as part of Vena Nation week. We’re bringing in two legendary Excel experts to speak on all kinds of interesting Excel-related topics—from new Excel features you just need to know to understanding the importance of effective data storytelling in Excel. Both of our speakers are recognized as Excel MVPs by Microsoft. But wait, there’s more. You can even submit your Excel questions on our Excel Nerds Unite website and they will get answered during Vena Nation week (and beyond that during our yearly Plan To Grow talks). So if you’ve ever been stuck on an Excel problem, now’s your chance to chat with the pros! So with that, why don’t I tell you a little bit about our Excel Nerd speakers who will be with us during Vena Nation Week.  Punra Duggirala aka Chandoo Let me begin by introducing Chandoo. Punra Duggirala, also known by his nickname, Chandoo, holds an MBA from IIM Indore and Computer Science degree from Andhra University. Chandoo is really passionate about data analytics and visualization and has developed a platform for sharing knowledge about Microsoft Excel, Power BI and new ways of presenting data. He loves Excel (possibly even more than we do here at Vena), and for Vena Nation week this year, he’ll be teaching you New Excel Features You Need To Know and The Ultimate Excel Shortcuts to help you become the nerdiest Excel expert. To make it even better, Chandoo will be answering your Excel-related questions, so be sure to submit them before June 15! Liam Bastick aka SumProduct Liam Bastick is a full-time Excel legend and part-time comedian (you’ll see more of the comedian during his sessions). Liam is a chartered accountant and chartered management accountant specializing in financial modeling and strategic advice. He is also the Director of SumProduct, a business providing Power BI to financial modeling services and strategic advice, decision analysis support and training to corporate, banking and service delivery clients nationally and internationally. For Vena Nation week, Liam will be walking you through Creating Effective Spreadsheets in Excel and Effective Data Storytelling in Excel. Missed Vena Nation Week? Check out all the Vena Nation week sessions on Plan To Grow, and stay tuned for more updates and all the ongoing content that will be released on Excel Nerds Unite. Make sure to check out all the great talks and live and interactive events we had during Vena Nation week this year.