Blurb Rewrites the Book on Strategic Decision-Making With Adaptive Planning

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 30, 2013) - Adaptive Planning, the worldwide leader in cloud-based business analytics solutions for organizations of all sizes, has helped Blurb free-up 75 percent of its finance department to focus on more strategic initiatives.

As a fast-growing, international self-publishing platform provider, Blurb relies heavily on analytics and planning to segment customers, optimize sales opportunities, and prioritize product initiatives.

"Before Adaptive, we lacked transparency within financial performance," said Blurb COO Gene Domecus. "We have two finance teams in two different continents. We were using spreadsheets for planning and forecasting, which got too large and complex to track. We had no account level monthly expense plan."

Adaptive's cloud-based planning and forecasting software has enabled Blurb to increase collaboration between its two finance departments and consolidate business KPIs into a single view. That view includes data in seven languages and two currencies.

"Our finance teams can now share information and collaborate on-demand," Domecus explained. "They've absorbed Adaptive like sponges, and it has forced us to get our house in order and clean up our charts of accounts."

Blurb has also used Adaptive's business intelligence (BI) features to create individual financial plans and forecasts for three customer segments: personal users, business users, and self-publishers.

"The metrics are different for each segment, but we never had the reporting capabilities to reflect this," Domecus said. "Now we can go into transactional data, isolate segments, and quickly see the key differences. As a result, we can build variance reports and align sales and marketing strategies across customer segments and geography."

"Blurb's use of Adaptive Planning proves that our technology simplifies historically complex and time-consuming financial strategies," said John Herr, CEO of Adaptive Planning. "Today's finance teams are much more strategic and nimble than ever before, rendering cumbersome legacy finance tools obsolete. Adaptive Planning gives finance leaders accurate corporate performance insight to drive business decisions. We're thrilled to support this effort for Blurb, and for all of our customers worldwide."

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About Blurb®
Blurb® is a creative publishing and marketing platform that unleashes the creative genius inside everyone. Blurb's platform makes it easy to design, publish, market, and sell professional-quality books, using the Blurb Bookify™ online bookmaking tool, Blurb's free, award-winning Blurb BookSmart® app, or by using Blurb's PDF to Book workflow. Blurb's bookstore and online marketing tools enable customers to market and sell their books, and keep 100% of their profit. Blurb's social and community features allow customers to create and share Blurb books among friends and colleagues with ease.

Blurb was founded by Eileen Gittins in 2005, and includes a team of design, Internet, and media veterans who share a passion for helping people bring their stories to life. In 2010, Blurb shipped over 1.4 million books to 69 countries. In 2010, Blurb was ranked the fastest growing media company on the Inc. 500. Blurb is based in San Francisco with offices in London. For more info, visit www.blurb.com.

About Adaptive Planning
Adaptive Planning is the worldwide leader in cloud-based business analytics solutions for companies and nonprofits of all sizes. The company's software as a service (SaaS) platform allows finance and management teams to work together to plan, monitor, report on, and analyze financial and operational performance. With capabilities for budgeting, forecasting, reporting, consolidation, dashboards, and business intelligence, Adaptive Planning enables finance, sales, and other business leaders to make better, faster, more collaborative decisions that drive a true competitive advantage.

Adaptive Planning is used by over 1,700 organizations worldwide, from midsized companies and nonprofits to large corporations, including AAA, Boston Scientific, CORT, Konica Minolta, NetSuite, Philips, and Vail Resorts. The company is the 5th fastest growing software company in Silicon Valley on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ list; has the #1 brand in midmarket CPM; and ranks #1 in customer satisfaction and usability in independent industry surveys. With customers and partners in 82 countries worldwide, the company has the strongest channel ecosystem in the cloud CPM space, with worldwide partners including Armanino, Intacct, IntuitiveTek, Plex Systems, SAP, and NetSuite, which offers a specialized version of Adaptive Planning as the NetSuite Financial Planning module. Adaptive Planning is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. and is funded by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), ONSET Ventures, Monitor Ventures, and Cardinal Venture Capital.