The Partner Channel Magazine Winter 2017

INTERVIEWEE
Warwick Leitch, COO
WEBSITE
www.calumo.com
HEADQUARTERS
Plano, Texas and Sydney, Australia
ISV PROFILE
CALUMO
DID YOU KNOW? CALUMO is a three-syllable word pronounced: CA + LOO + MO
CALUMO is derived from Keleuma (kel-yoo-mah), a Greek word meaning the song, chant, or command given by the
chief oarsmen that gives power and rhythm to the rowers. In the same vein, CALUMO empowers people, facilitating
unification and collaboration to achieve optimum performance.
The Partner Channel (TPC): What was the
launching point for CALUMO?
Warwick Leitch (WL): The founders were
all accountants who hated doing repetitive
tasks. Even though we had mastered Lotus
and Microsoft Excel, there was no really good
business intelligence (BI) tool out there for
accountants. We dabbled in code, became
programmers, and built the beautiful solution
that is CALUMO today. Today, our focus
hasn’t changed – we help accountants and
analysts do their job easier and faster.
TPC: Tell me more about the solutions you
have for Microsoft Dynamics.
WL: CALUMO is a BI and corporate
performance management (CPM) platform that streamlines
reporting, budgeting, and forecasting.
Our accelerators connect directly into Microsoft Dynamics in
the cloud or on-premises. In just a couple of hours, CALUMO
frees users of reporting and budgeting pain. We load up their data,
accelerators connect to the Microsoft Dynamics suite, and data
for analytical reporting, budgeting, and forecasting is ready to go.
What’s driving the implementation of CALUMO is that
organizations are struggling with a multitude of disconnected
ERP systems. Presently we are working with a shipping
manufacturer who has Microsoft Dynamics GP, QuickBooks,
Warwick Leitch
and Deltek. CALUMO consolidates that data,
and saves their team hundreds of hours each
year.
TPC: You focus specifically on BI for finance.
Why do you take that approach versus a big
data focus?
WL: “BI for finance” is what we know and do
really well. The majority of our team has either
been CFOs or controllers in their previous
roles – so we understand the pains and agonies
experienced in organizations that spend far too
much of their time in Excel crunching numbers.
Other solutions just aren’t as evolved,
especially when it comes to the specific needs
of finance. For example, Management Reporter
in Microsoft Dynamics GP is okay, but it has limitations.
Accountants often need to get their general ledger (GL) data and
mesh it with accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR)
and other data. To do this, they need to use a third-party tool
like CALUMO or deal with Excel. As many accountants know
all too well, using Excel leads to living in “Excel Hell”. CALUMO
takes them out of that and automates those processes.
Post-CALUMO, these same accountants now spend their
time analyzing the data, not working out how to use Excel.
That said, although finance has always been our bread and butter,
we are focusing on chief marketing officers (CMOs) in 2017.
48 WINTER 2017 | THEPARTNERCHANNEL.COM