Finance 360 Degree Insight Survey

EPM Channel recently completed a 360 degree survey of the Finance function in both large- and mid-sized companies, with 40% of the respondents coming from marketing, operations, and other non-finance fields. This 360 degree view enabled analysts who worked on the survey to compare the responses of both finance and non-finance professionals in order to gain unique perspectives.

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The Rise of the Project Economy

With the fiscal cliff behind us and 2013 ahead, many Americans are coming to terms with the fact that the relationship between employees and employers has changed.

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Fortifying the Close-To-Disclose Process

A growing number of CFOs and finance directors are now turning their attention to the close-to-disclose process, which involves all activities needed to close an organization’s accounting books, perform all necessary intercompany accounting and reconciliation steps, finalize consolidated financial statements and, finally, release earnings and publish official statements with regulators ranging from the Securities and…

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The True Measure of Finance Function Excellence: Deliver Value Efficiently

From major overhauls to specific process improvements, organizations featured in APQC’s 2012 Financial Management Best Practices Report are boosting both efficiency and effectiveness. The role of the CFO is analogous to the governor, an electronic device in automobiles installed to limit top driving speed. Current law in the United States holds CFOs of public companies…

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Financial Planning and Analysis

Only 5% of respondents say their Finance organization is delivering Game Changing Value today? What’s that about? A new research paper prepared by APQC and EPM Channel argues that CFOs must now double-down on their investments in finance team training and development. The sense of urgency stems from the fact that many new and middle-management…

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Setting Expections in SaaS – the Service Level Agreement

The emergence of the Software as a Service (SaaS) model has necessitated new relationships between the service provider and the consumer withrespect to service availability, service performance and response times. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) has evolved to become a useful tool which governs both service expectations and the consequences of failure to meet these…

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FP&A Process Improvement

Best-practice financial planning and analysis (FP&A) teams are looking for ways to venture beyond the traditional job scope. Previously, the typical FP&A team spent the bulk of its time reporting on how well the organization had performed during a given period versus pre-set targets. The team may have also helped to develop contingency plans in…

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Are All of Your Customers Profitable to You?

It is no longer sufficient for an organization to be lean, agile and efficient. Its entire supply chain must also perform as the company itself does. If some of its trading-partner suppliers and customers are excessively high-maintenance, those suppliers and customers erode profit margins. Who are these troublesome suppliers and customers, and how much do…

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APQC Survey on Financial Improvement Programs

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…

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Cloud Computing – A Silver Bullet For Finance

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…

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