The Ledger
Curated content foranalytical business leaders
CFOs Must Focus on Data Integrity Before Analytics
July 25, 2018
After all of the changes that finance has gone through due to new technologies and digitization, it is no surprise that CFOs’ priorities are changing. The main objective they are focusing on this year is supporting the enterprise’s need for information and analytics by maintaining a competitive cost structure. Without a strong foundation of consistent data definitions and processes for how data is stored or changed, there is no guarantee of data integrity. Without data integrity, finance cannot trust the outcomes of analytics solutions, no matter how sophisticated they are. This has finance leaders asking the question, ‘How will finance teams have the time to spend analyzing all the data spit out by business units and provide options and guidance to management based on it?”
Product Market Competition Isn’t Just About Pricing Anymore
July 24, 2018
For the previous generation of finance leaders, business used to be pretty straightforward, which meant their job was much less complex – a company would make something and sell it. Today, very few companies are competing on price alone, and everybody wants to move up the value chain. Organizations must now be delivering service along with products and anticipating customer needs as they arise. Knowing how to look ahead and plan well is much more important than it ever used to be. The impact on financial and non-financial KPIs, as well as the extended digital ecosystem, requires a different type of planning with real-time, dynamic data and predictive analytics capabilities. Some of this intelligence will come from people and some from your systems. But none of it should come from static, outdated data – at least not if you’re going to plan effectively.
Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >
Creating Sustainable Value Through Digitization
July 23, 2018
The pace of digital transformation is accelerating across all industries, creating technological disruption and a risk of being left behind. It’s crucial for business leaders to think through how to make the most of new technologies in the finance function and prepare for the foreseeable changes. Technology must ultimately be applied in a way that provides a real, meaningful contribution to business success. There are five crucial considerations for organizations when designing and implementing a smart, value-driven digitization strategy for their finance function.
Integration is Paving the Way for Dynamic Financial Planning
July 19, 2018
Traditional approaches to financial planning are no longer sufficiently flexible or sophisticated to enable rapid response to dynamic changes in the business environment. As a result, financial plans can end up disconnected from the day-to-day reality of the organization and ultimately, the financial planning process becomes an exercise in playing catch-up rather than a path to desired results. In today’s volatile business environment, leaders need to be planning in sync. To do so, they need their capital budgeting, long-range planning, annual planning, strategic and operational planning, and management reporting to be integrated.
Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >
