All too often, finance departments face the same challenges at the end of every reporting period—whether it’s monthend, quarter-end, or year-end. The department must prepare financial reports and statements such as balance sheets, cash flow statements, income statements, and increasingly, management reports, as well as provide information about key performance indicators. On top of that,…
The benefits of cloud computing—a high return on investment, greater staff efficiencies, optimization of IT resources, and enhanced visibility and access to information— have piqued the interest of CFOs and finance leaders who are actively evaluating the risks versus the rewards of the cloud delivery model. Although a steady migration to the cloud is happening…
Many organizations are confused as to the difference between BI and Performance Management and how the two fit together. This is made worse as Performance Management has become synonymous with planning, budgeting and forecasting systems, while BI is seen as systems that provide detailed analyses. Gartner introduced the term Corporate Performance Management (CPM), which they defined as “… the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems used to monitor and manage an enterprise’s business performance”. The promise of CPM was to improve decision-making and provide more effective control over organizational activity.
What improvement programs are Finance organizations embarking on today? What level of commitment are they making, and in what areas? These are some of the questions APQC and IEG researched in a compelling new whitepaper.
145 organizations participated in the survey and some of the findings are quite surprising.
The fact that eight out of ten organizations are now pursuing major process improvements is significant for three reasons. First, prior to the global financial crisis, CFOs by and large were mainly interested in incremental process improvements to save money. The slogan “do more with less” summed up the general attitude. But now we have strong evidence that CFOs want to deliver effectiveness as well as efficiency. The overwhelming majority of survey respondents indicated they are now pursuing these goals simultaneously.
As India grapples with rapidly slowing growth, a depreciating currency and policy inaction from a weak government, the country’s huge appetite for gold is putting the economy in a precarious position.
In the “Preface” to The Gathering Storm, volume I of Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs, Churchill writes that when President Roosevelt asked for suggestions about what the war should be called, he replied that it should be called “the Unnecessary War.” If someone asked me what to call budgeting I’d say it’s “the Unnecessary Practice.”
As CFO, you can be the best in the world (for your business), if your team is not up to par, you and your company will suffer. A key foundation for a CFO’s success is their Finance Team (see bottom of my CFO Relationship Map). CFOs I have spoken with agree that A Strong CFO needs a Strong Finance Team.
The most intractable issues that face finance departments are those that “everyone” knows must be addressed but somehow never muster the collective urgency to do so. Many couch potatoes know they need to watch their diet and exercise regularly. If asked, they would say it’s important or even very important. Yet there they sit.
Forbes’ 2012 list of the richest people in the world includes 1,153 individuals. Within that group, quite a few reaped their wealth from traditional banking.
The whole governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) category started out pretty much as a response to a variety of financial scandals, starting with the Enron debacle in 2001 and moving all the way through to Bear Stearns and Bernie Madoff in 2008.