The Ledger

Software Solutions For The Modern Finance Leader

CFOs today increasingly shape strategy across their organizations, driving long-term growth and performance. But with high volumes of data everywhere they turn, finance leaders are facing major pressure to gain meaningful insights quickly. In today’s digital economy, technology is no longer a luxury or “nice to have”; it’s a “must-have” that sets enterprises apart from the competition by providing a new level of trust and confidence that the data used to support decision making is up-to-date and accurate. Strong finance leaders are not held back by outdated or legacy systems because they are more than likely to have invested in technologies that help them achieve their business goals. With a dependable set of accurate and complete financial statements now a given, the business can get on with effective decision-making, compliance, forecasting, and strategic planning. Business software also provides strong real-time analytics, which can be used to make robust business-wide decisions, further strengthening the role of finance leaders as strategic adviser.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >

How Much is Your Business Complexity Costing You?

Without the right tools in place, business complexity is not only costly, it’s also a major hindrance to developing functional agility. The ability to respond quickly to changing market and internal conditions is critical for success in today’s ever-changing business climate. Recent research from The Hackett Group reported that organizational and process complexity are the second and third biggest inhibitors of becoming an agile finance function. Complexity is combination of different factors, all of them related and often specific to an industry or company. However, finance in any industry can reap substantial benefits from reducing the complexity of its operating environment.

Read More at The Hackett Group >

Why Intelligent Businesses Are Focused on Comprehensive Reporting

An intelligent enterprise is one that leverages data strategically to improve business performance and better serve customers. Leading businesses are focusing on improving data visualization to catapult their efforts modernizing and optimizing their data landscape to support their overall strategy. While traditional reporting is still the main source of information for decision support, enterprise reporting tells the story of business performance over time and can be a key factor to being competitive. By revamping data visualization and enterprise reporting with advanced technologies, companies can extract more value from their data and move closer to becoming an intelligent enterprise.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >

Six Common Data Management Mistakes That Manufacturers Make

“All too often, companies execute a data management strategy without understanding how it fits into the overall business strategy.”

Data alone has the power to make or break a company, depending on how it’s used. The manufacturing industry is changing with evolving technology and businesses are relying on their data to stay competitive. With increasing demands to simultaneously reduce time-to-market and keep up with suppliers, distributors, and end users, manufacturers often find that their mismanaged data is working against them. Most, if not all, of these challenges stem from leveraging the wrong system, or one that is unable to access, interpret, combine and present data so it can be used effectively to drive positive business outcomes.

Read More at Manufacturing.Net >