The Ledger

Nine Essential Steps for Strategic Planning

All corporate functions do strategic planning, but few do it well. Strategic planning is critical for forward-looking organizations, but short-term planning activities often leave little time to pursue long-term strategy. The mission for business leaders is to identify initiatives that will drive enterprise growth ambitions, and unlock the capacity (time, budget, talent and technology) needed to fuel them. Most companies are now pursuing strategies that have a greater risk of failure, and often involve business model change that creates a complex set of coordinated changes across the business. Gartner suggests 9 steps that provide a guide for leaders to effectively prioritizes the successful execution of critical initiatives that are tied to overall business goals.

Read More at Smarter with Gartner >

Meeting Customer Demand with Integrated Manufacturing Visibility

Today’s customers demand high-quality, individualized products and faster delivery. When it comes to the manufacturing function, manual processes and isolated information silos make meeting these demands increasingly difficult. What’s needed are connected manufacturing processes that are integrated across the entire product life-cycle to break down silos and provide visibility across the phases of design, planning, logistics, and operations. This can enable next-generation business processes that leverage intelligent technologies to analyze root causes of inefficiency, predict machine and process failures, and speed execution. An integrated environment for manufacturing can help compress cycle times, speed time to market, minimize costs, and meet manufacturing demand with greater efficiency and agility – despite growing variability.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >

Turn Strategy into Actionable Plans with Next-Level FP&A

“Few processes within the purview of a CFO have so much potential to create—or destroy—business value than FP&A”

A recent study from the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) found that in general, top performing organizations take a more rigorous and integrated approach to their FP&A practices by relying on businesses insights to drive results, not just predict them. Unfortunately, many companies are not achieving the full potential of their FP&A activities because they tend to put more focus on forecasting and budgeting, rather than the core principles of planning and execution. Forecasting and budgeting are certainly important, especially in communicating to the organization if it is on track to achieve its business outcomes or to raise warning flags. But forecasting results is not the same as building a plan to actually achieve them. Planning and execution are what will determine success.

Read More at CFO Magazine >

The Pivotal Role of the CIO in Digital Transformation

Businesses around the world are under intense pressure to invest in transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and cloud that will help them compete effectively in a world increasingly defined by digital innovation and disruption. This unique situation requires chief information officers (CIOs) to play a larger role in shaping and executing business strategy. Deloitte’s global cost management survey found that while cost management is a top priority for businesses, it is referred to as a “save to transform” initiative because many companies are using their cost savings to help fund investments in growth and transformation. CIOs and technology leaders operate at the intersection of all three save-to-transform aspects: cost reduction, growth and transformation.

Read More at Information Week >