Welcome to our latest meet the team blog

Welcome to our latest meet the team blog. Today we introduce Grace Mark, who is a Professional Services Consultant and Financial Consolidation Subject Matter Expert. Grace has been delivering financial consolidation and planning solutions to customers since joining Bedford in October 2021.

What made you consider joining Bedford?

I had been working as a Finance Manager for 4 years managing all finance operations and reporting across different entities and countries. As a Finance Manager, I had implemented systems within the finance team and had the opportunity to be seconded on large scale enterprise system implementations for FTSE listed companies.

During one of these large-scale implementations, I came across Anaplan, and I saw the immense value Anaplan added to companies’ operational efficiency. It was at this point that I realised that I wanted to learn more about Anaplan across different industries and use cases. Bedford was my first choice because I wanted a company with a consistent record in delivering successful Anaplan projects, knowledgeable team and a culture of openness, inclusivity, value, collaboration, and friendly learning environment.

What does a typical day look like for you at Bedford?

My morning will normally start with a daily standup with the customer and the project team, the rest of the morning is spent on a mix of activities such as reviewing what has been built, responding to questions regarding complex requirements from the project team and taking on building tasks myself.

Throughout the rest of my day, I will have multiple meetings with the customer on a range of several topics and communicate relevant messages from these topics to the project team.

At the end of my day, I will spend time reviewing what we planned to achieve today, what we accomplished and realigning the project build task priorities for the next day (this also serves as my preparation for the next day’s standup meeting with the customer).

What has been the most exciting development at Bedford?

Anaplan’s acquisition of Fluence Technologies. As one of Bedford’s Financial Consolidation SME’s, I am excited about using Fluence in combination with Anaplan’s great functionality to deliver exceptional financial consolidation implementations for customers. Fluence in combination with Anaplan will provide the perfect fit for achieving true connected planning with customers.

You are one of Bedford’s Financial Consolidation SME’s, what are the key things customers need to consider before an implementation?

• Data – it is important to think about how trial balance data, local & group chart of accounts are structured. Will current structures be retained? Or will you require amendments?
• Consolidation entries & ad-hoc/complex methods of calculation – what ad-hoc calculation do you currently perform and would like to replicate?
• Output reports & users – what output reports do you require? Will output from this implementation be used by another system? How do you want to manage internal control?

What’s the most important skill that someone needs to succeed in your role?

As an SME in Financial Consolidation, it is important to understand how you can combine your group accounting and Anaplan/Fluence knowledge in articulating your vision and thoughts to stakeholders to achieve a desired outcome.

To meet some other members of the Bedford team, click here.