Finance 360 Degree Insight Survey…Results Say…

February 1, 2013 5:05 am 0 comments Views: 302

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Back in November, EPM Channel developed their Finance 360° Insight survey to determine where Finance was delivering game-changing value, where they were not, and what could be done about it.

We designed this survey to be a 360° Insight analysis of the finance functions from all levels within the organization. Marketing.  Sales.  Operations.  HR.

Many times, finance operates in a vacuum - for many reasons – so we took this opportunity to poll everyone to determine how the role of finance in the organization can be improved – today.

Below is the link to our white paper with results from the survey.

Some key points:

We’ve known for a long time that Finance has the potential to deliver game-changing value to the organizations they support. We also know that Finance hasn’t always delivered on that potential. We even know the root reason why – the fact that Finance spends too much time on mechanics and data gathering, and not enough on analysis.

But what we haven’t been able to answer is how Finance got in that trap, why it’s more common than not to stay stuck there, and frankly if the rest of the organization sees the world the same way (or not).

Finally, there is the obvious question of just what should be done to close the gap between the potential to deliver value and actual performance.

Those were the questions we set out to answer in the Finance 360° Insight™ survey.

Link to download the white paper is here.

Some key highlights:

There are several important key issues that are holding finance back from delivering game-changing decision support to senior executives.  What are they? What can be done to ensure finance always provides maximum value to the organization?

The #1 area where senior finance executives thought training and development was needed was in “Influence without authority.”

In fact, an overwhelming 70% identified this need (which is even higher than overall results). However, according to the survey, only 5% of organizations are addressing this critical need today.  What do senior finance execs see that others don’t?

While half (50%) of the senior finance executives polled believe that Finance can deliver “game changing” decision support, less than 15% say that’s what is actually being delivered today. And 10% rate decision support as “Unsatisfactory” or even a “Failure”.  Why? What can be done?

An overwhelmingly 70% of senior Finance executives said they know Finance spends too much time on mechanics, too little on analysis. That represents an even higher percentage than what we saw in overall results, so this obstacle to Finance’s ability to deliver value is even more visible at the senior levels.

While a full quarter of respondents believe Finance can deliver “game changing” decision support, nobody is seeing that today. While Finance is getting a seat at the table, they can clearly be delivering more value once they get to that table.

EPM Channel’s Finance 360° Insight survey addressed these issues, and many more.

Please download the survey, here.

An invitation

 To help you build a business case for change, you may want to consider taking the survey and comparing your organization’s responses to the national benchmarks. To that end, the Finance 360° Insight™ survey is available online. Just use the url below.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Finance360Insight

If you would like some help in interpreting the results, or in more precise benchmarking data (e.g., for your company size or industry) then contact us at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to discuss your situation with you and your team.

 

 

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