Case Study: Brown-Forman cuts board-report compilation time from 15 to under 2 hours with Workiva Wdesk

Brown-Forman expands use of Wdesk to FP&A

Brown‑Forman, the Louisville‑based spirits and wine company behind brands like Jack Daniel’s and Finlandia, faced a cumbersome process for producing its 20–40 page board of directors report: content arrived in multiple Word, Excel, and PDF files from a 12‑person global team, edits were manual and time‑consuming, and senior reviewers saw the report too late in the cycle. Leadership wanted a modern, repeatable process to free up time for analysis and improve report quality.

The company expanded its use of Wdesk from SEC reporting into FP&A, centralizing content, training users, assigning “section captains,” and leveraging Workiva CSM support. The result: compile time dropped from about 15 hours a month to under 2 hours (an 87% reduction), reviews happen earlier with more C‑suite involvement, reports are more consistent and detailed, and Wdesk adoption has grown to other reporting areas.

Brown-Forman

Andrew Campbell

Senior Analyst, Corporate Development