Posts from the ‘Close, Consolidate, Report & File’ Category

Mar 6

2010 IBM Global CFO Study (Summary): Where Finance Efficiency meets Business Insight

This is a brief follow up to my prior post where I promised to provide more background around the 2010 IBM Global CFO Study’s results. As you can see from the figure below there are two dimensions that jumped out at the researchers based on their ‘comparative regression analysis’ that the feedback provided. Those two areas are Finance Efficiency and Business Insight. Fall short on either one and the financial outcomes suffer. After breaking out the capabilities across the Finance Efficiency and Business Insight dimensions the data showed that four different levels or quadrants of performers surfaced. Read more

Feb 28

Bedford Falls or Pottersville? It’s Up To The Office of Finance

Most people have either seen or heard of the movie It’s A Wonderful Life where its lead character, George Bailey, evolved from the depths of despair to exalted heights. George found himself in what he perceived as a dead end life accomplishing nothing he’d dreamed of doing as a child forever stuck in his job as the head of his father’s failing Bailey Building & Loan business and in his personal life as both husband and father. There he was with no options in the sleepy little Bedford Falls town with no ability to ever fully appreciate the sweeping impact his daily efforts were actually making. The movie vividly highlights the important one-to-many network effect that can be achieved by doing the small things consistently right. In baseball vernacular, it’s ‘small ball’. Nothing exciting but gets the job done. The movie’s conflict arises when George decides he wants out of this life. Read more

Nov 30

Business Analytics: Part Historian, Part Pragmatist, Part Futurist

We often hear Business Analytics being so many different things that we feel it’s near impossible to get a handle on what it really is. I’m sure you were just getting used to the idea of what Performance Management is and now we throw Business Analytics into the equation. To make matters worse, there’s a great deal of prognosticators, thought leaders, and industry analysts who still are married to the idea of calling the space Business Intelligence. I thought it might make sense to pass along a simple explanation of each without all of the Big 5 consulting speak that usually goes with it. Read more

Oct 17

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IBM Cognos FSR: The Silver Bullet for Automated Financial Statement Reporting & Disclosure Management (Webinar with demo)

IBM Cognos FSR is making in roads with many organizations as they grapple with the demands of disclosure-related processes and their related reporting requirements. We’re seeing successes all over where finance departments are realizing massive time savings not to mention having the absolute confidence in their reported figures as a result of implementing IBM Cognos FSR. New SEC reporting requirements due by year end are one of the catalysts for this but there’s certainly other reasons for companies adopting this solution, including greater financial governance, enablement of XBRL, as well as other internal performance reporting needs. It’s been fun seeing organizations transform this process into something that’s now almost as simple as 1-2-3.

Here how IBM Cognos FSR and the processes it enables. Also, see a demo of it in this Financial Performance Insider webinar series.

Click here to view this IBM Cognos FSR webinar!

#baforum

Sep 9

IBM Cognos FSR, Aesop and Sun Tzu

When I think about the capabilities of our IBM Cognos FSR solution it reminds me a lot of Aesop’s fable about the Ant and the Grasshopper. It’s about preparing today for more challenging times. If you don’t know this fable I’ve included it below as it’s so short it’s not worth paraphrasing. Read more