How Workday Adaptive Planning helped Collegium level-up its financial planning and analysis

An interview with Cary Denson, Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis, Collegium Pharmaceutical by Mike Mooney

Collegium Pharmaceutical is a fast-rising biopharmaceutical company with a diverse portfolio of treatments aimed at improving the lives of people living with serious medical conditions, including pain management medications and a rapidly growing neuropsychiatry business driven by Jornay PM®, a differentiated treatment for ADHD. To support its expanding product portfolio, Collegium found themselves in search of a scalable, efficient, and accurate financial planning solution. 

Complexity outpacing spreadsheets for scalable financial operations how Workday can help

When Cary Denson joined Collegium in May 2022, the company had just completed a major acquisition. Financial planning, which had been relying on a fragmented series of spreadsheets and were manually managing revenue, operating expense and integration costs. They knew that they had the need and opportunity to streamline their processes.  

“We were juggling files, fixing broken links, and spending late nights ensuring the numbers were right,” Cary recalls. “It was tactical, not very strategic.”

They were given a clear mandate from Collegium’ CFO: find a scalable financial planning and analysis (FP&A) solution that would support growth and increase efficiencies. Cary and her team began a process to identify the right tool and before long Workday Adaptive Planning, deployed by Strada, emerged as the clear choice.

Partnering with Strada for scalable success through effective deployment strategy

To support Collegium’s transition from manual processes to strategic planning, Strada led a structured, two-phase deployment of Workday Adaptive Planning:

• Phase I consisted of loading in historical data, integrating key source systems, and delivering a comprehensive financial reporting framework with fully implemented income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow models.
• Phase II built on that work, introducing detailed, driver-based revenue and COGS planning, expanded dashboarding, and enhanced reporting for leadership and budget owners.

Strada’s deep understanding of the life sciences industry, product portfolios, and financial modelling enabled them to design a deployment plan tailored to Collegium’s current and future needs. Their experience and efficiency helped the team execute quickly and confidently.

“The Strada team had a playbook. They understood life sciences, our product portfolio, and what financial statements should look like. They laid out a plan that worked for us and helped us execute it efficiently.”

Cary Denson VP, FP&A, Collegium Pharmaceutical

Time savings, accuracy, and strategic insight for effective operational forecasting

Since implementing Adaptive, Collegium has seen dramatic improvements in efficiencies and accuracies.

“We’re retail pharma, we’re math-heavy,” Cary explains. “We model gross-to-net, cost per unit, and other key variables. Adaptive lets us program those inputs at the start of a cycle and we trust the math.”

Forecasting is now streamlined:

• Revenue is modelled in the first four business days of the quarter.
• Financial statements are completed by Day nine.
• Governance packages are published by Day 10.

“Before Adaptive, we spent nearly two weeks just on revenue forecasting,” Cary says. “Now our time is devoted to more strategic work.”

Collaboration and governance between financial teams and the wider organisation

While Collegium’s finance team maintains tight control over modelling, Adaptive has improved collaboration through dashboards and reporting.

“We don’t let partners into the tool yet, but they have read-only access to dashboards,” Cary notes. “We can quickly synthesize results, explain variances, and have meaningful conversations that inform future forecasts.”

Adaptive Planning’s scalability has proven critical. Following another acquisition in September 2024, Collegium seamlessly expanded its entity and level structure. 

“We turned around forecast numbers for the new acquisition in just two weeks. Workday Adaptive Planning was built to grow with us.”

Cary Denson VP, FP&A, Collegium Pharmaceutical

While Cary’s team now handles updates to cost centers, formulas, and accounts with ease, they are confident knowing that Strada’s support team – who Cary calls “an extension of our own team” is just a call away. 

“Workday Adaptive Planning has given us our time back,” Cary concludes. “It’s efficient, accurate, and scalable. And Strada was the right partner to help us get there.”

Advice for peers 

As other companies evaluate their own FP&A tools, Cary offers practical advice from her experience with Collegium.

“Think about time, customization, maintenance, and your future state,” she says. “You want a solution that grows with you, not one that forces you back to Excel when the business changes.”