Analyst Perspectives


Search within Analyst Perspectives blog:

TopBar Analyst Perspectives BottomBar

Business Planning Software Unifies Siloed Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 11 February 2022
Having just completed the 2022 Ventana Research Value Index for Business Planning, I want to share some of my observations about the business planning software market and how it has advanced as an important part of our market coverage for almost two decades. Dedicated applications for planning and budgeting have been around since the 1980s and are, therefore, quite mature, with robust features... Read More

Topics: Planning, Office of Finance, Budgeting, Business Planning

The Office of Finance Market Agenda for 2022: Effectiveness and Profits

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 February 2022
Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda for the Office of Finance, continuing the guidance we have offered since 2003 on the practical use of technology for the finance and accounting department. Our insights and best practices aim to enable organizations to operate with agility and resiliency, improving performance and delivering greater value as a strategic partner. We craft... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Revenue, blockchain, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, AI and Machine Learning, lease and tax accounting

2022 Market Agenda: Increasing Supply Chain Agility and Resilience

Posted by Robert Kugel on 02 February 2022
Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 research agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes. Readily available innovative digital technology can help organizations optimize operations by aligning customer demand with fulfillment... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Property Technology, Supplier Relationship Management

Augmented Reality Will Evolutionize Business Computing

Posted by Robert Kugel on 25 January 2022
As with many IT innovations, augmented reality (AR), extended reality (XR) and the related topic of spatial computing had been discussed to death long before they became a practical reality. As a user interface, AR is already well understood in terms of its ability to open vast new vistas in entertainment as well as making physical tasks, such as machinery maintenance and warehouse pick-and-pack,... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Digital transformation, natural language processing, extended reality, robotic automation, Collaborative & Conversational Computing

Configure, Price and Quote Software Supports Profitability Management

Posted by Robert Kugel on 07 January 2022
Pricing is an issue that almost every for-profit company confronts – and usually agonizes over. Chief financial officers must play a part in setting the strategic direction of pricing in their organization. They should not be involved in tactical pricing decisions because they are not close enough to markets and customers, but they should be part of the strategic design of pricing, especially as... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Analytics, Financial Performance Management, Digital Commerce

Tackling ESG Reporting Challenges

Posted by Robert Kugel on 21 December 2021
ESG reporting is a matter that organizations – and especially publicly held corporations – will be confronting over the next several years. Ventana Research asserts that by 2025, one-half of corporations with 1,000 or more employees will have a formal ESG reporting process in place to address legal mandates or shareholder demand. The roots of ESG investing go back many decades but it has gained... Read More

Topics: FP&A, Governance, Office of Finance, Performance, Reporting, CFO, ESG

Fix Sales and Operations Planning to Improve Financial Efficiency

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 December 2021
Several years ago, I noted the importance of gaining resilience in managing supply chains. The world had entered a new era of trade following the financial crisis of 2007, as multilateral relationships were steadily fragmenting. For decades, sourcing and supply chain management was focused almost exclusively on achieving the lowest cost, and the world’s trade environment supported this approach.... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain

Evolving ERP Systems Redefining Office of Finance Operations

Posted by Robert Kugel on 03 December 2021
Over the past decade, how organizations manage processes and record data related to transactional events captured by an enterprise resource planning system has undergone a significant evolution. Some of the more recent changes have been the result of a steady migration to the cloud, since these systems are typically updated frequently, require less maintenance, have better performance and are... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Blockchains for Medical Identity Management Face Challenges

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 November 2021
The need for a COVID-19 vaccination “passport” has prompted some to suggest using blockchain technology as a means of reliably verifying an individual’s status at an international level. There are precedents: for example, until smallpox was eradicated, all international travelers were obliged to carry an immunization record for that disease on a standard paper form to gain entrance to a country.... Read More

Topics: Data Governance, Information Management, Data, blockchain

Digitally Transform Purchasing to Improve Performance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 November 2021
Digital transformation of the Office of Finance has been a recurring theme for several years, but adoption accelerated when offices were locked down and organizations had to collaborate remotely. It involves shifting manual work, often completed via spreadsheets circulating in emails, to software and systems for improved performance. A practical approach to the transformation process involves a... Read More

Topics: Performance Management, Office of Finance, Digital transformation

Digitize Tax Departments for Increased Strategic Value

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 October 2021
Managing corporate income taxes is a challenge for chief financial officers. Tax codes are often complex, so tax accounting as well as the data required for tax provisions and tax compliance are different enough from statutory accounting to create significant workloads for the tax department. Today, the worldwide trend to higher taxes and growing tax code complexity is increasing the payoff for... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Revenue, lease and tax accounting

Managing Price Inflation Effectively with Technology

Posted by Robert Kugel on 21 September 2021
A looming challenge for companies in the developed world is price inflation, an issue periodically fretted over – but not experienced at a macroeconomic level in most developed economies – over the past four decades. Price inflation has been a frequent bugaboo that never emerged because of persistent disinflationary forces in the world economy over the past forty years. It remains to be seen to... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Essential Technology for Continuous Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 14 September 2021
As a result of the rapidly changing business landscape in 2020 and the need to quickly – and intelligently – change business plans and budgets, many more companies have been deciding to adopt a continuous planning approach to be able to add speed and flexibility. Transforming how organizations plan and budget has become a top-of-mind issue for CFO and even CEOs. Ventana Research has been... Read More

Topics: FP&A, Office of Finance, budget, CFO, financial planning

Meet the Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) Reporting Challenge

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 August 2021
Environmental, social and governance reporting by public corporations has become a top-of-mind issue for senior executives and boards of directors as countries increasingly consider or mandate its implementation in some form. The fundamental rationale for ESG reporting is rooted in the inability of purely financial measures to capture externalities (such as greenhouse gas emissions) or provide... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Data, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Zuora Earns Office of Finance Digital Innovation Award for 2021

Posted by Robert Kugel on 19 August 2021
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT. Ventana Research has... Read More

Topics: Sales, Office of Finance, Digital Commerce, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Subscription Management

Finance IT Improves Departmental Performance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 06 August 2021
A year of business uncertainty, lockdowns and operational disruptions forced finance and accounting organizations to adapt and change in many ways that are proving to be permanent. The need to operate virtually resulted in some organizations accelerating their adoption of technology, bringing them closer to achieving a transformation of the finance and accounting function: reshaping the... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, blockchain, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, AI and Machine Learning

Controllers: Always Be Closing

Posted by Robert Kugel on 29 June 2021
These days it strikes me that the motto of successful salespeople – "ABC: Always Be Closing!" – should apply equally to corporate controllers, albeit in the accounting sense. This is a reference to an approach to managing the finance department that I have been advocating, which I call "continuous accounting." It is a holistic way of managing the accounting function that, in large part,... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Digital Process Reengineering Improves Business Performance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 May 2021
Business process reengineering (BPR) was a consulting fashion in the early 1990s that spurred many companies to purchase their first ERP systems. BPR proposes a fundamental redesign of core business processes to achieve substantial improvements in market and customer responsiveness, productivity, cycle times and quality. Those early ERP systems provided a platform to manage cross-functional... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, lease and tax accounting

Reduce Risk and Improve Departmental Effectiveness with Intercompany Financial Management

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 May 2021
Ventana Research defines intercompany financial management as a discipline for structuring and handling transactions within a corporation and between its legal entities. IFM is designed to maximize staff efficiency and accounting accuracy while optimizing tax exposure, minimizing tax leakage and ensuring consistent tax and regulatory compliance. Today, IFM is an obscure topic, but I assert that... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Revenue, robotic finance, lease and tax accounting

Integrated Business Planning Uses Zero-Based Budgeting to Improve Performance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 21 May 2021
The objectives of zero-based budgeting are well aligned with what I call integrated business planning, a technology-enabled approach to managing the forward-looking activities of a corporation including forecasting, planning and budgeting. IBP enables every business unit to plan their business in a way that makes sense to them but also makes the numbers in those plans available for company-wide... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, robotic finance, Predictive Planning

Browse by Analyst

Robert Kugel

Robert Kugel

 David Menninger

David Menninger

 Jeff Orr

Jeff Orr

 Keith Dawson

Keith Dawson

 Matt Aslett

Matt Aslett

 Matthew Brown

Matthew Brown

 Barika Pace

Barika Pace

Posts by Topic

see all

Posts by Month

see all