15 - 20%
More accurate forecasts
Millions
of dollars saved due to improved forecast accuracy
10 Million
Work orders evaluated each year
Benefits
- Prove value in weeks - not months or years.
- Financial close process is 50% faster (2 weeks to 1 week).
- Finance-owned solution means IT provides technical support but finance teams to are able tweak models, criteria, reports and more – on their own.
- Revolutionized planning: now developing new automated 12-month forecasts every 2 weeks.
- Full transparency into which numbers and calculations go into and come out of the platform.
Industry
Professional Services
Location
Greensboro, NC USA
Solutions
- Financial Close and Consolidation
- Budgeting and Forecasting
- Operational Planning
- Sensible ML
Since 1997, Stake Center Locating has been a leader in the locating industry, known for its extensive resources and experience. With headquarters in North Carolina, Stake Center Locating operates across 48 states, serving commercial and residential sectors by locating underground utilities like fiber, gas, and electric lines. Named among the 5,000 fastest-growing U.S. companies in 2019 and 2021, they continue to prioritize safety, accuracy, and timely service, investing in people, equipment, and technology.
“It's so quick to get Sensible ML set up with your data. You're talking about weeks, not months or years. So, the investment in Sensible ML is small for the reward.”
- David Kennedy, CIO, Stake Center Locating
1. How can AI bring clarity to an unknown future?
Artificial intelligence elevated underground line detection to new levels of precision, efficiency and insights.
Professional services companies often struggle with creating accurate forecasts due to the variable nature of their projects and client demands. Stake Center Locating faced similar challenges in predicting workload and resource allocation for their underground utility locating services.
Of the 48 states the company operates in, each state has different regulations for underground utility damage prevention. This adds complexity to the already variable forecasting process. Accurate forecasting of ticket volumes is crucial for Stake Center Locating to manage staff efficiently and maintain profitability. Incorrect forecasts of volume of tickets can result in either overstaffing, leading to wasted resources, or understaffing, which impacts customer satisfaction and increases operational costs.
David Kennedy, CIO of Stake Center Locating, emphasized the need for accurate daily forecasts to drive short-term headcount planning and improve long-term planning. Seasonal variations, weather, and holidays further complicated the forecast accuracy. Previously, Finance struggled to layer in state-specific nuances and create accurate forecasts, impacting their ability to optimize staffing and operational efficiency.
“The system can find all those little idiosyncrasies that that we never would have found.”
- David Kennedy, CIO, Stake Center Locating
2. Sensible Machine Learning demonstrates improved forecast accuracy, efficiency and transparency.
Purpose-built ML accelerates time to value for Financial planners and produces significant cost savings to the bottom line. Stake Center Locating turned to Sensible ML to revolutionize their forecasting process.
“Today's process with Sensible ML is a game changer. It allowed us to shift from quarterly and annual forecasts to a daily forecast for the following 2 weeks, updated weekly.”
- David Kennedy, CIO, Stake Center Locating
For long-term forecasting, Finance is now able to create a rolling 12-month forecast, updated monthly. Previously, the planning and forecasting process took three quarters and several planners to create. With Sensible ML, this process now takes 30 minutes and is run by a click of a button. This new approach enables Stake Center Locating’s business planners to adjust headcount dynamically, aligning staff levels with demand fluctuations.
“Implementing Sensible ML brought a 15-20% improvement in forecast accuracy of ticket volumes. For 10 million tickets a year, this enhancement translated into millions of dollars in savings and directly impact the bottom line,” said Kennedy. The system accounted for diverse factors such as state-specific regulations, weather patterns, and construction activities, significantly refining the accuracy of Stake Center Locating’s forecasts and optimizing staffing in each location.
Not only did Sensible ML greatly benefit Stake Center Locating in their short-term needs, but the company can now better plan for their long-term capital planning. How? The organization invested in equipment for their employees, such as laptops, phones, and trucks. Accurate 12-month rolling forecasts allowed Stake Center Locating to plan truck leasing cycles efficiently, avoiding unnecessary costs or shortages. The system also provided valuable insights into the impact of external events, such as the signed infrastructure bill, enabling Stake Center Locating to make informed, data-driven decisions.
“Today's process with Sensible ML is a game changer.”
- David Kennedy, CIO, Stake Center Locating
Sensible ML revolutionized Stake Center Locating’s forecasting capabilities, leading to greater accuracy, efficiency, insights and ultimately profitability. “Success breeds adoption,” noted Kennedy, and the speed and ease of implementing Sensible ML accelerated time to value for the Finance users at Stake Center Locating.
“The power of Sensible ML is that you can easily pick out different data sets and features to try them and see the results. It's the click of a couple buttons to model different scenarios. Whereas before you needed tons of data scientists on crunching numbers, and it would take months and months just to come up with a single scenario.”
- David Kennedy, CIO, Stake Center Locating
3. The journey to transform forecasting continues.
The transformation at Stake Center Locating underscores the potential of AI to drive business success in the modern landscape
To be listed on Inc.’s fastest growing companies for multiple years, Stake Center Locating needed to invest in the right technology and processes to ensure successful scaling. “With a proof of value, it's so quick to get Sensible ML set up with your data. You're talking about weeks, not months or years like traditional machine learning projects. So, the investment in Sensible ML is small for the reward.”
The Stake Center Locating team is actively exploring new avenues to enhance their ML-enabled forecasting capabilities. With a solid methodology established, they have broadened the scope of the initial project, enabling them to deliver deeper insights and more comprehensive scenario planning. For example, Finance plans to use Sensible ML to forecast down to a lower level of granularity from their current level of detail by state down to metropolitan area, customer and product type.
Kennedy’s recommendation for other organizations looking to get started with their AI journey:
