IBM Finance Forum NYC 2013
Last week View B.I. attended IBM Finance Forum 2013 in NYC at the Rooftop Garden at 230 Fifth Avenue. The theme was, "Smarter Analytics. Smarter Outcomes." I had the pleasure to meet Jim Collins, (not the Good to Great author, but IBM's...) Financial Performance Management Strategy Executive, who presented on how financial companies can "Create an analytical culture and deliver stronger business insight."
He began by discussing the challenges and opportunities facing financial companies. He noted that global Chief Executive Officers believe that external forces that will affect the organization most significantly are:
technology factors
people skills
market factors
This is an opportunity for Chief Financial Officers to be agents of innovation and growth, by driving smarter analytics practices. Ever since Sarbanes Oxley, CFO's have been tasked with supporting increasing enterprise decision making. CFO's ranked the importance of enterprise processes, but also ranked their deficiency in effectively managing them:
Providing inputs into enterprise strategy (28% deficient)
Measuring and monitoring business performance (23% deficient)
Driving enterprise cost reduction (21% deficient)
Surprisingly, only 29% consistently use data to derive insights. Collins posited that finance must create an analytical culture that delivers stronger business insight at the point of impact. We (I say "we" because View B.I. is an IBM Business Partner) can begin building up your analytics capacity in three steps, by:
Automating analytic processes
Driving new insight and agility
Advancing analytic maturity
Automating Analytic Processes
We can automate processes such as: financial reporting, performance management, profitability modeling, planning, budgeting and forecasting financial consolidation, and disclosure management. These processes can be automated by loading and leveraging spreadsheets, connecting easily to all data, designing intelligent processes and automation, and integrating numbers with narratives. Departments that will benefit include: regulatory, external reporting, investor relations, treasury, tax, and financial planning and analysis.
Driving New Insight & Agility
Next, we can use analytics to keep operations aligned with financial plans. Integrated analytics gets departments out of their silos. Insights can help: marketing grow profitable customers; sales with compensation management, territory management, quota planning, and channel management; operations with asset management, fraud detection, and supply chain management; finance and risk management with governance, regulatory compliance, and decision-making.
Advancing Analytic Maturity
The steps to building a mature performance management system are:
Align information with Analytic Data Management
Engage front lines with Process Automation
Accelerate and link with Best Practices
Analyze patterns that span finance and operations
Steer continuously as a strategy aligned organization
Optimize outcomes with enterprise-wide transformation
Get Started Today!
If you would like to get started analyzing your data today, you can being by dragging an dropping Excel spreadsheets into IBM's free Personal Edition of Cognos Insight. Visit AnalyticsZone.com to download and install in minutes, complimentary.