Tangoe is a global technology expense and asset management company, helping enterprises manage IT, telecom, and cloud spending. They handle over $15 billion in expenses and process more than 370,000 invoices monthly across 200+ countries and territories. As CFO, Joel Jeselsohn oversees finance operations and reporting for a 35-person finance team.
When Your Tool Holds You Back
When Joel joined Tangoe three years ago, he immediately saw the finance team struggling. Their reporting tool, Adaptive, lacked the flexibility they needed, dashboards offered little insight, and most work relied on exporting data to Excel for lengthy manual analyses. Payroll forecasts, revenue modeling, and expense tracking were slow and tedious, and integrating data from multiple systems was error-prone. Reporting cycles and other critical analyses took weeks, stretching the team thin.
“The team was struggling with Adaptive. When I asked to see the dashboard, nothing was populated. It just wasn’t working for them, they were using it as a glorified Excel. And when I asked them to do certain things with the tool, it couldn’t deliver.”
Historical and ad hoc analysis was another challenge. Critical information was buried across disconnected systems. Month-end reporting was overwhelming, and preparing private equity reporting packages added another layer of complexity.
Joel knew the team needed a solution that could centralize data, automate reporting, and still let them work in the Excel environment they relied on.
A Smarter Way
Joel and his team conducted a thorough evaluation of multiple tools, including Adaptive, Jedox, and Vena, before deciding on Datarails. He gave the team full freedom to test each platform and make a recommendation.
I was a Datarails user at a previous company, but I didn’t tell the team. I wanted them to evaluate everything and decide for themselves. I was thrilled with their recommendation.
Joel JeselsohnCFO
They chose Datarails for its flexibility, ability to centralize data, and Excel-friendly interface, which let them stay in an environment they already trusted.
The platform addressed Joel’s three main pain points: payroll, revenue, and other expenses. Payroll forecasts could now be generated accurately by department, revenue models from Excel were automated for faster reporting, and expense data was centralized for real-time team access.
Implementation went smoothly and gave the team ownership from day one. Datarails’ design made it easy to quickly set up reports, test scenarios, and make the platform work for Tangoe’s unique needs.
The platform is intuitive and powerful. We could set up reports, explore different scenarios, and see results immediately. It completely changed how our team works.
Faster, Clearer, Better
We’re able to get information out faster, and everything is much more efficient and insightful.
Month-end reporting, which used to take up to three weeks, now wraps up in just a few days. Private equity reporting became much smoother, with templates automatically updated from Tangoe’s different systems.
Having all the data in one place allowed the team to spot trends and patterns that had been buried in spreadsheets. They discovered repeat customer patterns and used them to guide sales strategy and margin management. Dashboards offered real-time visibility, letting the team explore data across different periods and product lines with ease.
Everything is live and interactive. We can switch views, track trends over time, and drill down where needed. It’s really easy and flexible for the team to use.
Next-Level Finance
Datarails has become the central hub for financial insights and planning at Tangoe. Looking ahead, Joel is excited about the platform’s AI capabilities as a way to streamline reporting even further, giving the team more time for strategic analysis with confidence in the accuracy and timeliness of their information.
We can move quickly, trust the numbers, and actually spend our time analyzing the data instead of wrangling it. That’s been a game-changer for the team.
Joel JeselsohnCFO
