Hortonworks uses cloud BI & CPM suite from Adaptive Insights to help manage and accelerate company growth.

1. Customer Success Story
Hortonworks Runs Enormous Expansion,
High-Growth on Adaptive
Big Data developer, distributor manages multi-entity, multi-
country, multi-currency growth with Adaptive.
“Adaptive is key to keeping up with our growth. If
Adaptive fell off the earth, it would be like cutting
off my arm.”
– Dan Bradford, VP of Finance
How fast-growing is Hortonworks?
Today’s leading international commercial developer and distributor of Apache Hadoop
was founded in 2011 and already has a case of the “multies” – multiple entities, in multiple
countries, handling multiple currencies.
Acceleration, Expansion on Adaptive
According to Hortonworks CFO Dan Bradford, the Palo Alto-based company uses Adaptive
Planning to do everything from managing employee growth, to generating weekly financial
forecasts.
“We’re a high-growth company and we’re still adding headcount, expanding globally, and
handling more types of currencies,” Bradford explained. “Adaptive is key to keeping up with
our growth. If Adaptive fell off the earth, it would be like cutting off my arm.”
Without Bradford, Hortonworks may still be using a time-consuming, on-premise FP&A
solution; an outdated model ill-fit for an industry-leading company. But when Bradford
joined Hortonworks in June, 2011, he arrived with some valuable career experience.
“I’ve used Adaptive at different career stops, beginning in 2008 when I was a professional
services consultant,” Bradford said. “I also used it when I worked for a real estate firm and
had about 30-40 budgets to maintain. So when I came to Hortonworks and realized we
needed a more efficient process, I implemented Adaptive right away.”
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Hortonworks
Software
Palo Alto, CA
Hortonworks develops, distrib-
utes and supports the only 100%
open source Apache Hadoop
data platform. The Hortonworks
Data Platform provides an open
platform that deeply integrates
with existing IT investments and
upon which enterprises can
build and deploy Hadoop-based
applications.

2. Corporate Headquarters
3350 W. Bayshore Road, Suite 200
Palo Alto, CA 94303
T: +1 800 303 6346
F: +1 650 528 7501
UK / Ireland Headquarters
88 Wood Street London,
EC2V 7RS, UK
T: +44 0 208 528 1767
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Eight Mile Plains, QLD 4113, Australia
T: +61 7 3118 5013
F: +61 7 3041 6020
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Customer Success Story
Deeper, More Accurate Insight
“We love the Netsuite connector,” Bradford continued. “We’re using it to make income
statement reconciliations and quickly find and reconcile any variances so that I can focus
on the most important nuggets of data. And at the end of each quarter, we import actual
costs from Netsuite and give our Board a complete corporate performance report.”
For Hortonworks, the list of Adaptive benefits goes on, including:
• Drill-down analysis of KPIs
• More accurate and frequent planning
Detailed “what-if” analysis
• Easy-to-update, 18-month rolling forecasting
“For me, I instantly knew Adaptive had return on investment,” Bradford explained. “It’s top of
mind for financial planning, and it allows me to spend much more time on really strategic
things instead of jockeying spreadsheets for eight hours. I haven’t needed to hire a director
of FP&A yet, because Adaptive has streamlined our planning and reporting. That alone is a
significant cost savings for the company.”
Adaptive Plays Key Role in Employee Growth
According to Bradford, “people” is Hortonworks’ main cost center. And that’s where
Adaptive has been most crucial to the company’s growth.
“I use Adaptive to track new hires and who is slated to be hired,” Bradford said. “The ability
to change a headcount assumption, and have it globally run through our entire business
model to see the impact on payroll taxes, or personnel allocations, is instantaneous with
Adaptive. I click a button and holy cow! I have a huge set of neatly-packaged reports to dis-
cuss with the management team, which would have taken hours to do without Adaptive.”
Executives Get Answers Fast
Bradford’s job includes more than tracking and managing people and expenses. He
also has to field and answer questions about growth and performance from the rest of
Hortonworks’ executive team – a job that would have taken most of Bradford’s time away
from important tactical initiatives. Instead, Bradford has questions under control, allowing
him to be the strategic finance leader that is crucial to any fast-growing company.
“I click a button and holy
cow! I have a huge set of
neatly-packaged reports,
which would have taken
hours to do without
Adaptive.”
“For me, I instantly knew
Adaptive had return on
investment, It’s top of mind
for financial planning.”
– Dan Bradford, VP of Finance