Vail Resorts Optimizes Resources and Streamlines Finances Across Its Spas and Ski Slopes

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 18, 2013) - Adaptive Planning, the worldwide leader in cloud-based business analytics solutions for companies and nonprofits of all sizes, today announced that Vail Resorts, the leading mountain resort operator in the United States and a publicly held company traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: MTN), implemented Adaptive Planning to consolidate and benchmark financial data across properties in an automated fashion instead of the Excel-based process, which required manual data entry. 

The Vail Resorts family of companies employs more than 13,000 peak-season employees across five segments, hospitality, retail, transportation, real estate and development and corporate. The finance team faced a challenging planning environment because each of the divisions and locations was relying on separate accounting systems. In addition each division used a separate chart of accounts. Vail Resorts wanted the ability to consolidate and benchmark across properties in an automated fashion instead of the Excel-based process, which required manual data entry.

"We wanted the ability to do all of our formula based planning, run reports and compare spas across ten properties to determine profitability," said Wayne McLellan, Jr., Senior Manager Lodging Finance, RockResorts and Vail Resorts Hospitality. "In addition, the ability to standardize our planning model across the organization and make changes to variable expenses and have that automatically roll up was an important requirement. After comparing multiple options, Adaptive Planning was a no brainer because of its robust functionality, affordable cost, and customizable options that met our planning needs."

After selecting Adaptive Planning, Vail Resorts implemented the solution with 10 hours of professional support and rolled out to 58 users across two instances. Since implementing Adaptive Planning, Vail Resorts has experienced an increase in engagement among department heads in the planning process. Now each department head creates their own budget in Adaptive Planning, freeing up the Director of Finance to focus on the drivers that impact the business. Vail Resorts business model is driven by rooms occupied (occupancy percent), food and beverage capture rate (#of guests served a meal to as a percent of occupied rooms), golf rounds, and spa treatments. The business is also highly seasonal with the winter high season attracting a more affluent customer demographic vs. the summer season which is considered a value season. Now, in Adaptive Planning, they can model out their staffing and labor costs based on the projected occupancy using base-plus-variable labor cost formulas.

"The forecasting process used to take 2-3 hours per individual for more than 25 participants and now takes just 20-30 minutes," says McLellan. "Apply these time savings and we have seen a reduction in time spent of more than 56 hours. Strategic decision making has improved as a result and we now review a 90 day forecast each month and run reports to compare budgets/forecasts to actual and to prior forecasts. With Adaptive Planning we have a much better ability to manage the top line."

"We are pleased that Vail Resorts has achieved a significant ROI by implementing Adaptive Planning for forecasting and reporting critical financial data," said John Herr, CEO, Adaptive Planning. "As a season pass holder at Breckenridge for many years and a California resident, I am a big supporter of Vail Resorts and the quality customer experience they provide. We are excited to help Vail Resorts continue to improve their financial management of this great company."

About Vail Resorts

Vail Resorts, Inc., through its subsidiaries, is the leading mountain resort operator in the United States. The Company's subsidiaries operate the mountain resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado; Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood in the Lake Tahoe area of California and Nevada; Afton Alps in Minnesota and Mt. Brighton in Michigan; and the Grand Teton Lodge Company in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Company's subsidiary, RockResorts, a luxury resort hotel company, manages casually elegant properties. Vail Resorts Development Company is the real estate planning, development and construction subsidiary of Vail Resorts, Inc. Vail Resorts is a publicly held company traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: MTN). The Vail Resorts company website is www.vailresorts.com and consumer website is www.snow.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 1,500 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 in independent industry surveys. With customers and partners in 80 countries worldwide, the company has the strongest channel ecosystem in the cloud CPM space, with over 400 worldwide partners including Armanino McKenna, 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 Mountain View, Calif. and is funded by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), ONSET Ventures, Monitor Ventures, and Cardinal Venture Capital.