The Ledger

Six Elements of a Robust Business Analytics Platform

 “As companies face a thinning margin for decision error, the ability to use business analytics effectively—everything from correlation, segmentation, clustering, regression analysis, as well as forecasting and predicting outcomes—is becoming mission-critical.”

There is a strong need for business leaders to gain insights, foresight and inferences from their data. However, with the amount of data they are managing, they need a business analytics tool with visualization to quickly gain real-time insights. So, how do you know what software tool is right for your business. There are six key components that, when embedded with analytics, provide powerful decision support.

Read More at The Journal of Accountancy >

Breaking Down the Barriers of Personalized Cost Visibility in Manufacturing

Customers are ever-evolving and gravitating towards more personalized products that meet their unique specifications. For manufacturers, meeting this demand for high-quality individualized goods is nearly impossible to do in a cost-efficient manner with outdated operational processes based on yesterday’s technology. Therefore, organizations are looking to transform their facilities into open integrated factories – the kind that enable the visibility and flexibility needed to make their customers’ personalization dreams come true. By adopting integrated and dynamic technologies, manufacturers can break down these barriers, connect their processes, and achieve a unified view of the essential information required to improve production performance.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >

Is Cost-Plus Pricing Right for Your Business?

The idea behind cost-plus pricing is simple: the seller calculates all costs (fixed and variable) incurred in manufacturing the product, then applies a markup percentage to these costs to estimate the asking price. This method can lead to powerful differentiation, greater customer trust, reduced risk of price wars, and steady, predictable profits for the company. It is essentially the opposite of value-based pricing, where prices are customized based on their target customer. Every businesses’ goal is to reduce costs, increase profits and retain customers, and the way a business prices its products can have a major effect on that.

Read More at The Harvard Business Review >

The Cost of Inaccurate Financial Data

Executives are tasked with making the best decisions for the business every day, and they rely on financial data to inform many of those decisions. The key to making the best decisions for the business is trusting the data, because inaccuracies in financial data can have a very negative impact. This impact includes significant reputational damage, potential inability to secure additional investment, and increasing debt levels. Additionally, many organizations spending endless hours fixing financial errors in their accounts. An integrated automation platform helps maintain the integrity of numbers and processes in several ways.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >