Boston Red Sox Bring Data Strategy to the Finance

REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 1, 2017) - Host Analytics , a leading provider of scalable, cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions, today announced that Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox have translated the team's data analysis on the field to finance success in the front office with Host Analytics. With the cloud EPM solution, the team has been able to streamline budgeting and lower expenses, ensuring profits even in the volatile world of Major League Baseball, where ticket sales and revenues can change week to week with the team's standings.

"Host Analytics allows us to be more collaborative and efficient. Because we're able to be more proactive and forecast over the course of a year, we have been able to save an additional half-million to $1 million in expenses that otherwise would have been water under the bridge in the old, Excel-driven world," said Ryan Scafidi, senior director of financial planning and operations for the Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox finance team manages budgets and planning year-round, for a myriad of details including concessions, travel, merchandise sales, players and staff salaries, ticket sales and more. Like many corporate finance departments, the team was drowning in Excel spreadsheets that were prone to error filled out by multiple managers. Despite a desire to analyze the data and get as much from the numbers as they could, reporting was so labor intensive that the team did it just twice a year.

The Red Sox turned to Host Analytics to speed up and centralize the budgeting, planning, and reporting process. Host Analytics provides a single, cloud-based system to input data, eliminating manual errors, and ensuring that each manager always has the most up-to-date data for real-time insights.

With Host Analytics the finance team works more collaboratively with each department for planning and analysis, and reporting time is a fraction of what it was in the past -- minutes versus weeks. The team can develop monthly forecasts and provide on-demand financial reports.

In addition, the team has time to dig in to the data-driven planning that is the hallmark of the MLB success in the 21 ^st century. For example, finance regularly reviews data from the team's ticketing database and Host Analytics to create projections from historical analysis. Like the best coaches, they use these insights to make smart adjustments that can ultimately make a big impact on the bottom line.

"We can look at whether we're on plan, and how current performance compares to last year," Scafidi says. "And if we're trending in the wrong direction, we can raise the red flag and course correct."

For more detail see the  Boston Red Sox case study on the Host Analytics website.

About Host Analytics Host Analytics is the industry's leading provider of scalable, cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions. Companies of all sizes, from $10 million startups to $10 billion multi-nationals, rely on Host Analytics to provide financial planning, budgeting, modeling, consolidations, and reporting. Host Analytics has 700 customers in 90 countries including Bose, Boston Red Sox, FitBit, La-Z-Boy, Mayo Clinic, NPR, OpenTable, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Pinterest, Swissport, TOMS Shoes, and Vitamin Shoppe. Host Analytics is a private company backed by leading venture capitalists and is headquartered in Silicon Valley.

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