The Ledger
Curated content foranalytical business leaders
Is Your Data Valuable?
January 24, 2018
A digital revolution is upon us and companies are asking the question, “What have we got that is going to allow us to survive this transition?” The answer to that is data. Data has become the oil that fuels the prediction machine in any organization. There is a tendency these days to see all data as potentially valuable for artificial intelligence, but that isn’t really the case. Yes, data, like oil, is used day-to-day to operate your prediction machine. But the data you are sitting on now is likely not that data. Instead, the data you have now, which your company accumulated over time, is the type of data used to build the prediction machine instead of operating it.
Read More at The Harvard Business Review >
Achieving a Flexible and Relevant Budget For Your Organization
January 23, 2018
Everyone talks about their budgets and the issues that go along with it, but rarely take any action. A new AFP member survey of finance professionals, Is Your Budget Relevant? , found that the majority (55%) of respondents said their company had a rigid or ironclad budget process. This keeps them from being agile in an increasingly flexible world. On the other hand, 30% of respondents said their budgeting was “loose”. An answer to solving this is adopting and budgeting for a rolling forecast. You can’t tell in advance where your customers will be, but it is important to budget for them.
Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >
Creating Synergy for Manufacturers Will Lead to Higher Profitability
January 22, 2018
The amount of data that management teams have access to can be overwhelming. Despite the advanced technology available today, there are still three key issues that adversely affect manufacturers of all types and sizes- data management, inventory, and gross margin. Although each has its own silo, they are also interrelated. Examining and scrutinizing data management, inventory, and gross margin results in a more reasoned picture about how the use of controls can generate greater productivity and profitability. Creating synergy among these departments will ultimately lead to a positive impact on profitability.
Data Insights in the Real World
January 18, 2018
“A California CIO uses data to help citizens survive earthquakes, landslides, floods, and volcanos; a Dutch executive uses it to visualize solutions to rising sea levels; a Chinese CIO sells the cloud to his culturally risk-averse boss. Data, often hundreds of years old, is the untapped resource for many executives tasked with digitally transforming their organizations. We spoke to five CIOs who are on multiyear journeys revamping their companies’ systems for the cloud. They share their thoughts on data gravity, data sovereignty, data access, and other human factors related to data. Indeed, the one goal they all had in common was to gain the ability to obtain real-time insights from vast stores of data.”
Read More at Forbes Magazine >
