How much of your business performance (profit) is driven by external factors versus internal? A figure of 85% compared to 15% was mentioned at last month’s Manufacturing Analytics Summit, and although I could not find the study mentioned to confirm, it feels about right to me. Certainly more than half, right? So, how much of yourdashboard reporting and KPI metrics incorporate external data?
By Timo Elliott, from: http://timoelliott.com/blog/analytics-cartoons
What trends have developed over the past century for enterprise and corporate performance management methods and business analytics?
One way to find an answer is if we performed research using a Google database that was unveiled in 2011. It includes 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. With this database, one can input search words and phrases and discover how frequently those different terms were used during different past time periods.
With this Google database, researchers have been learning about interesting and possibly relevant shifts in social values or cultures. For example, one study revealed that between 1960 and 2008 self-centered phrases about an individual increased while group-related communal phrases declined. That is, phrases like “I come first” increased as “community” and “common good” decreased.
For most organizations, aggressive cost-cutting and management were critical to remaining profitable while top line revenue was flat or shrinking during the recession.
However, now many organizations taking a more “surgical” approach to profitability and cost management, by understanding which products, services, customers and channels are truly profitable and which ones are draining value from the business.
How does your organization analyze and manage profitability?
Shared services are really a concentration of company resources performing like activities, but they are spread out across the organization to service multiple, internal partners at a lower cost and providing higher levels of service.
Most organizations have shared services, but often do not understand the value that they add to a company or the value that they can destroy.
So what are the goals for shared service centers?
Bill Knese, CMA, CFM, CPA, member of IMA’s Global Board of Directors and CFO of Angus Industries, Inc. discusses whether private companies would benefit from a separate standard setting body.
Stay tuned for part two, and watch the full video interview below.
While over 2000 organizations already have registered sustainability reports with the Global Reporting Initiative(GRI), and more than 3000 organizations have submitted their environmental information to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), investors are pushing for more consistency and global standards in environmental and sustainability reporting and standards are being defined for integrating sustainability reporting with financial reporting.
“The Cloud” has become one of the hottest buzz topics in the industry this year, and what started out as a topic mostly of interest to IT executives is quickly moving to the radar screen of CFOs and Finance Executives.
Some of the advantages of cloud-based applications include improved time to value, reduced up-front costs, leveraging 3rd party skill sets and having a scalable environment to support future growth. Some of the considerations and risks include security, performance, integration of cloud-based applications with on-premise systems and long-term costs of ownership.
Find out more here.
The concept of “bring your own device” (BYOD) is a growing trend for business IT. There are a variety of benefits to allowing users to supply their own PCs and mobile devices, but there are also some concerns. Make sure you understand both in order to embrace BYOD with confidence.
It used to be that IT departments drove technology, but that has changed dramatically in recent years. The consumerization of IT revolution — sparked by the iPhone — has shifted the IT culture so that the users are the ones getting the latest, cutting edge technologies first, and they want to bring those devices to work.
Let your users bring their own device, but consider the potential issues as well.
Antiquated processes and tools combined with misconceptions regarding forecasting accuracy have hindered the quality of forecasting processes around the world, producing often questionable forecasts. Yet, organizations have good reason to strive for accurate forecasts.