Venues NSW NetSuite Planning Case Study | Pivot2

Case Study

Venues NSW brings clarity to complex event planning with NetSuite Planning and Budgeting and Pivot2

At a glance

Operating some of New South Wales’ most iconic venues, Venues NSW manages hundreds of events across multiple locations, each with its own commercial model and financial profile.

What once sat across spreadsheets and underutilised systems is now a more connected, structured planning environment inside NetSuite.

Venues NSW owns and operates eight Tier 1 venues, soon to be nine, across New South Wales.
The portfolio includes major stadiums such as the SCG, Allianz Stadium, Accor Stadium and CommBank Stadium, alongside venues in Newcastle and Wollongong.
From small meetings through to global concerts and major sporting events, every engagement flows through a complex mix of venue hire, services and commercial arrangements.
Each event is different.
Each outcome is different.
And finance needs to bring it all together.
“We’re essentially a large infrastructure business. If someone wants to use a venue for sport, concerts or events, they come to us. Every arrangement is different.”
Alastair Miller, CFO, Venues NSW
Government
Events and infrastructure
- Health check and optimisation
- Planning model redesign
- Reporting transformation
- Ongoing advisory and support

Simplified planning structures aligned to the business

Improved confidence in budget, forecast and actuals

Faster, more reliable reporting through Smart View

The approach

Simplify first, then scale

Pivot2 was engaged to run a health check and reset the platform. The focus was not to rebuild, but to simplify and realign the system to how the business currently operates. That meant removing unnecessary complexity and creating a structure the team could confidently use.

Alongside the Venues team, Pivot2 focused on simplifying planning and reporting structures, cleaning up unused rules and logic, redesigning hierarchies to better reflect the business, strengthening system controls and performance, and establishing a clear roadmap for future capability.

“Pivot2 identified areas to simplify across processes, reporting and the system itself. This supported us in setting the direction for how we move forward.”

- Stephen Collins, Head of FP&A, Venues NSW

The results

From workarounds to a connected, trusted planning environment

With the foundations reset, NSPB moved from an underutilised tool to a core part of the planning process. Smart View became the central reporting layer, supporting month end reporting, actual versus budget variance analysis, and event level performance insights directly from the system.

At the same time, processes were strengthened to improve accuracy and consistency, with reliable actuals loading, stronger version control, and clear validation processes now in place.

“Now we have confidence that we can pull budget, forecast and actuals from the system and they’re accurate.”
- Stephen Collins, Head of FP&A, Venues NSW

The most meaningful shift has been confidence.

Confidence in the numbers
Confidence in the process
Confidence in finance

“Pivot2 accelerated our improvement, which strengthened trust in the numbers and the credibility of the finance function.”
- Alastair Miller, CFO, Venues NSW

With that confidence has come tangible improvements across the finance function, including faster and more efficient reporting, greater visibility across venues and events, reduced reliance on spreadsheets, and stronger alignment between budget, forecast and actuals.

Just as importantly, progress has been accelerated.

“We got there faster by using Pivot2 rather than building that expertise internally over several years.”
- Alastair Miller, CFO, Venues NSW

What’s next

With a strong foundation now in place, Venues NSW is expanding its use of NSPB across the business, moving towards driver-based forecasting linked to events and attendance, alongside headcount, capital and balance sheet planning, while also looking to automate its long-term ten-year planning cycles. The direction is clear, with less reliance on Excel and a continued shift towards more connected, structured planning inside NetSuite.