Improving the budgeting process of Cadence Inc.

This action research aimed to improve the budget preparation process of Cadence Inc., a semiconductor manufacturing company. The company was faced with an issue of inefficiency in its budgeting process, as evidenced by the long overtime hours during budget preparation season. In the first cycle of this action research, we improved the budget template by integrating more advanced Excel functions in the spreadsheet. By doing so, the efficiency at the end of the second budget season has improved and less overtime hours were spent by the staff. In the second cycle of this project, we addressed the inefficiency in reviewing the adequacy and credibility of the budget details submitted by Departments by creating detailed historical transactions in the spreadsheet to serve as a budget reference. Favorable results were also evidenced in the second cycle as all Departments have improved the level of details provided in their budget plan, making it easy for budget review