C-Suite Limericks: Benefits from Business Analytics
I am certain that I have broken the rules of meters in my limerick poem below. My excuse is that I am not a poet!
Are Dashboards Necessary?
A Performance Measurement dashboard is an exceptionally useful system for measuring and visually reporting on key performance indicators. Combining key performance indicators with a dashboard better enables the organization to monitor, analyze and manage important business processes from numerous perspectives, impacting both organizational effectiveness and agility.
The New Talent Mix
Finance chiefs are bolstering their strategic roles by hiring more FP&A help.It’s not news that today’s CFOs are more strategically oriented than many of their predecessors. But they are now trying to bring more of that analytical mind-set to their staffs, by adding more financial analysts than other types of finance positions.
What Sabermetrics and Moneyball Can Teach Us about Predictive Analytics
When Game 6 of the World Series was rained out, manager Tony La Russa went to see the movie Moneyball. His impressions? “Good acting,” he said, eliciting laughter from reporters. “I’m serious.”
A Kite with a Broken String – The Balanced Scorecard
How do executives expect to realize their strategic objectives if all they look at is financial results like product profit margins, return on equity, earnings and interest before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), cash flow, and other financial results? These are really not goals – they are results. They are consequences.
10 Rules for Highly Effective BPM: A Manifesto for the New Economic Reality
In October 2008, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheim commented that “visibility is low and forecasting is challenging,” which seemed to be a polite way of saying “We have absolutely no idea what will happen tomorrow.”
In June 2010, UPS CFO Kurt Kuehn reported that “normally we are very obsessive about building good and accurate plans, but as the recession dragged on we realized that trying to build a forecast was almost a waste of time.”
New Conditions Call for New Approaches to Forecasting and Planning
It has been more than three years since the global economic crisis battered investors, consumers and businesses alike. While there are signs of stabilization, the environment continues to be full of surprises, as witnessed by the recent battles over the U.S. debt ceiling. The situation in Europe offers little relief, with a series of sovereign debt concerns casting doubt on the fate of the Euro and the ongoing solvency of the European Union’s weaker participants. With slow growth and high levels of employment in the United States, the outlook is for more uncertainty.
Who are the animals of analytics-based enterprise performance management?
Ever notice how the personalities and dispositions of animals often resemble humans? An organization’s pursuit of adopting analytics-based enterprise performance management involves personalities of all types. How are they like the creatures that populate our planet? A blog is recommended to be less than 500 words, but I violate that suggestion for those readers who want some fun ! Here is a zoology of analogous types of employees that you might recognize.
BI among top IT priorities in 2012
Till now 2012, the Year of Dragon as per Chinese calendar has seen many resolutions, predictions, trends, forecasts, reports, priorities for Business Intelligence (BI). But I think report of BI being at the top of IT agenda for 2012 is a big one.
The Emergence of Business Analysts as Leaders
At a recent conference of the Association for Operations Management (APICS), where I was a presenter, I attended a provocative talk by Alan G. Dunn, president and founder of GDI Consulting and Training Company. He questioned if leaders are born or can be grown. It is the classic “nature versus nurture” debate. It got me to thinking about whether analysts can be more than a support to others. Can they be leaders? I share some of Alan’s thoughts.