Case Study: ABRSM improves driver-based financial planning with Workday Adaptive Planning

U.K.’s Largest Music Education Body Identifies Key Drivers to Optimize Operations and Model the Future

ABRSM, the UK's largest music education body and a leading global music exam provider, faced challenges with data integrity and a lack of standardized reporting due to its reliance on a complex system of linked spreadsheets for financial planning. The finance team needed a more effective way to model performance drivers and provide transparent KPIs to budget holders across the organization. To address this, they turned to Workday Adaptive Planning.

By implementing Workday Adaptive Planning, the vendor provided a structured yet flexible platform for creating driver-based plans and integrated financial statements. This solution automated reporting with tools like Adaptive OfficeConnect, enabling dynamic, presentation-quality reports. The results included improved collaboration and transparency, giving budget holders self-service access to performance data. This shift saved the finance team significant time, which was reallocated to in-depth analysis and generating what-if scenarios to better support decision-making across 90 countries.

ABRSM

Dominic Nastri

Head of Financial Management