When its implementation partner exited the IBM practice, a financial services firm was left with eleven business-critical TM1 models, zero documentation, and one developer holding the entire architecture in his head. Here is how the estate went from untouchable to fully owned in 90 days.
This case story illustrates a challenge we see across companies running TM1 and IBM Planning Analytics models built by partners who have since moved on. The client name is fictionalized, while the scenario, takeover methodology and business metrics are based on realistic industry benchmarks. Is your Planning Analytics estate running without an owner? Let’s map your takeover plan →
Meridian Capital Group, a financial services firm, ran its entire planning backbone on IBM Planning Analytics: eleven TM1 models covering budgeting, cost allocations, regulatory planning and workforce planning. The platform was not broken. Budgets ran. Allocations calculated. Submissions went out on time.
The problem was quieter, and more dangerous: nobody inside the company understood how any of it worked. The original implementation partner had wound down its IBM practice years earlier, leaving behind a decade of accumulated cubes, rules, feeders and TurboIntegrator processes — and not a single page of documentation.
Institutional knowledge lived with one in-house developer. Every change request was answered the same way: “better not to touch it.” For the IT Director, the estate had become a permanent line on the risk register: undocumented logic, an aging version, and a single point of failure — with a notice period.
Five days before month-end close, a routine chart-of-accounts update broke cost allocations across three interconnected models. Numbers stopped reconciling — and nobody could trace where the logic failed. The rules had been written by consultants whose company no longer existed.
The close was saved with manual workarounds and late nights. The lesson was not. Leadership realized the next failure might not happen five days before close — it might happen during it.
Multishoring’s IBM Planning Analytics team approached the takeover with one rule: no rip-and-replace, no rebuild pitch, no forced migration. Make the existing estate understood, testable and safe to change. In that order.
In 30 days, every cube, dimension, rule, feeder and TI process was inventoried and documented — while the departing developer’s knowledge was still available to verify it.
A full map of the eleven models exposed how data, allocations and security flowed between them — answering the question that broke the close: “if we change this, what else moves?”
Automated output comparisons run before and after every change. A modification that once required faith now requires a green checkmark — and nothing more.
The estate moved to a Multishoring managed-service agreement: a named team that knows the models, defined response times, and upgrades planned instead of postponed.
The goal was not to add new technology. It was to take an inherited black box and turn it into a governed, documented, SLA-backed planning platform — without disrupting a single planning cycle.
The biggest shift was not technical. It was the end of fear as an operating model for the finance and IT teams.
“Every change request ended the same way: better not to touch it. We were one resignation letter away from losing control of our planning platform.”
“A chart-of-accounts change is a ticket now, not a crisis meeting. That shift — from fear to routine — is worth more than any new feature.”
Once the estate was documented and testable, the conversation changed from “can we afford to touch it?” to “what should we improve next?”
The business case was about risk and speed: removing a single point of failure from a business-critical platform, and making change cheap again.
Multishoring’s IBM Planning Analytics practice covers model development, performance optimization, takeovers and long-term maintenance. Rescuing orphaned estates is not a side service — it is what the team does every day.
A two-week health check of your TM1 / Planning Analytics environment: model inventory, risk map, performance review and a prioritized stabilization plan.
Book a model auditReverse-engineering of undocumented models, dependency mapping and a regression test harness — turning an inherited black box into a governed asset.
Plan your takeoverOngoing maintenance, monitoring, upgrades and a change pipeline for your Planning Analytics estate — by a named team with defined response times.
Discuss an SLA modelWe inventory your models, assess documentation gaps, key-person risk and performance issues — and deliver a prioritized stabilization roadmap.
We reverse-engineer the highest-risk models first, map dependencies and build the regression harness — while your remaining knowledge is still in the building.
The estate moves to SLA-backed operations: a named team, a change pipeline, planned upgrades — and no disruption to your planning calendar.
“An orphaned planning estate rarely announces itself. The system works, the reports go out — until a routine change proves that nobody actually owns the logic underneath. Taking ownership is not about rebuilding from scratch. It is about documentation, testing and disciplined operations — done before the breaking point, not after it.”
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