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Technology Puts the ‘A’ Back in FP&A

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 November 2022
The starting point of an era is never precise and rarely conforms to neat calendar delineations. For example, the start of the 20th century is associated with the outbreak of war in 1914. So I expect that decades from now, the consensus will hold that what became known as the 21st century began in the year 2020, with the pandemic serving as a catalyst that accelerated already existing trends and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, AI and Machine Learning

IBM Planning Analytics Enables Agility Based on Insight

Posted by Robert Kugel on 18 November 2022
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is a comprehensive, cloud-based business planning application that supports what Ventana Research calls integrated business planning. We coined this term in 2007 to describe a high-participation approach to business planning that integrates strategy, operations and finance. Our Next Generation Business Planning Benchmark Research demonstrated the value of IBP:... Read More

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, Watson, Digital transformation, AI and Machine Learning

Planning for a More Uncertain World with Board International

Posted by Robert Kugel on 15 November 2022
The door opened to a new world in 2020, one that renders old assumptions suspect and future outcomes more varied and uncertain. It’s likely that the transition to what’s next will be bumpy, which makes planning more effectively that much more strategic. Board International offers a platform that enables financial planning and analysis groups to forecast, plan, budget, analyze and report, using a... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management

Prophix’s Finance Platform Boosts Midsize Departments’ Effectiveness

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 November 2022
Prophix offers cloud financial software for planning, budgeting, reporting and statutory financial consolidation designed to meet the requirements of midsize organizations and divisions of larger corporations. The company was one of the first to offer a planning platform capable of bringing together a company’s diverse planning processes and financial planning and budgeting. Its consolidation and... Read More

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

Vertex Manages End-to-End Indirect Tax Compliance Worldwide

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 November 2022
The worldwide market for software to manage indirect income taxes, which includes sales and use, goods and services (GST) and value-added taxes (VAT), has been growing because of recent compliance mandates, the growth of e-commerce as well as a desire to accelerate business processes by reducing friction in areas such as tax compliance, cutting administration costs and lowering risk. Vertex... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

A New Approach to ERP for a More Effective Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 04 November 2022
ERP systems have been a fixture of organizational process management and record keeping for so long (more than three decades) that it is likely that few who use the software are aware that ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resources Planning. Its smooth and uninterrupted functioning is essential to an organization’s accounting and finance processes. In manufacturing and distribution, ERP manages... Read More

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

A Finance Department Data Strategy for ESG Compliance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 31 October 2022
Sensitivity to environmental, social and governance issues – or ESG – has grown over the years and with it, increasing attention by some investors and government entities urging organizations to measure and disclose ESG metrics. The discussion about ESG reporting is now focused on high-level issues such as what data to gather, how to use it in reporting, and perhaps how to manage the disclosure... Read More

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

The Rising Expectations for Finance Analytics

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 October 2022
It’s likely that finance analytics trace back to when people first began to record transactions on clay tablets. Financial analytics were given a boost with the codification of double-entry bookkeeping, an elegant system for recording transactions that facilitate the assessment of the performance and health of an organization. Further advances were achieved with the first mechanical – and then... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management

Planful Acquires for Marketing Performance in Planning Suite

Posted by Robert Kugel on 19 October 2022
Planful recently acquired Plannuh, a marketing-performance management application, to integrate into the Planful platform so that organizations can connect their marketing planning and analysis group with the finance department. There’s the old story of a CEO who said, “I know half my marketing spend is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” Plannuh is designed to answer that question. Since... Read More

Topics: Marketing Performance Management, Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, intelligent marketing

Profitability Management Conquers Inflationary Pressures

Posted by Robert Kugel on 11 October 2022
A year ago, I wrote about how technology could be useful in an inflationary period, correctly anticipating the world we live in now. Responding effectively to changes in costs is always challenging, but even more so because of the choppy and chaotic nature of the current environment. Many organizations have a limited or no ability to raise prices, and are forced to find ways to minimize the... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, Revenue Performance Management

Building a More Predictive Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 October 2022
A predictive finance department is one that can command technology to be more forward-looking and action-oriented while still fulfilling its core role of handling the financial elements of its organization including accounting, treasury and corporate finance. Beyond just automating rote tasks, technology also facilitates a shift toward becoming a predictive finance organization. Greater amounts... Read More

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

Workday Rising Shows Advances for the Office of Finance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 September 2022
Workday held its first in-person Rising user group meeting since 2019 in Orlando. Three topics are worth commenting on: Workday’s Extend offering, its industry accelerators and its progress with the Workday Adaptive Planning offering. Extend: One important addition to Workday’s offering is Extend, a set of software development tools that helps organizations develop, deploy and manage new apps... Read More

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

External Data Supports a More Predictive Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 15 September 2022
Organizations do not live in a vacuum and things happening outside their walls have a direct impact on how they perform. So, it is essential for them to incorporate external data in their forecasting, planning and budgeting, especially for predictive analytics and machine learning (ML) to support artificial intelligence (AI). I use the term external data to include any information about the world... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, AI and Machine Learning

Straight-Through Processing Reduces Friction and Builds Trust

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 September 2022
General Omar Bradley is credited with saying, “Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics.” This is a battlefield commander’s perspective on the often-overlooked importance of mastering the nitty-gritty in achieving military objectives. I think the same is true when it comes to data in business computing because, in my experience, it is often an overlooked or secondary consideration.... Read More

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

Fluence Technologies Automates for Fast Close-to-Report

Posted by Robert Kugel on 31 August 2022
The lockdowns of 2020 forced accounting departments to adapt to managing their close-to-report cycle without face-to-face contact, prompting many to adopt digital technologies to facilitate the process. It gave further impetus to the digital transformation of the department, which aims to eliminate unnecessary manual tasks such as consolidations and reconciliations using software automation. And,... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

To Attract the Best Talent, Make Accounting Cool

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 August 2022
Especially in the United States, baby boomer retirements and fewer graduates with accounting degrees is posing a growing challenge to finance department executives in attracting and retaining the best accounting talent. The solution, which may not seem obvious, is to make accounting cool, again. Wait, what? Was accounting ever cool? Well, maybe it depends on what you think is cool. Double-entry... Read More

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

Sourcing and Purchasing Need Digital Transformation

Posted by Robert Kugel on 17 August 2022
“Digital finance transformation” became an even more important topic over the past two years as finance and accounting departments have had to cope with an unrelenting set of new challenges that have had a profound impact on business operations, financial markets and regulatory environments. Digital technologies enable organizations to cope with change and improve performance by increasing... Read More

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

Anaplan at a Crossroads

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 August 2022
Anaplan offers a cloud-based business planning platform that incorporates a modeling and calculation engine. The tool makes it relatively easy to add or expand the scope of plans that can be connected and monitored on a single platform. This Integrated Business Planning (IBP) approach enables organizations to use the software for financial planning or budgeting, sales, supply chain, workforce,... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, continuous supply chain, AI and Machine Learning

FP&A Needs a Data Strategy for Meeting Internal ESG Goals

Posted by Robert Kugel on 03 August 2022
Environmental, social and governance issues have grown increasingly pressing over the past few years as investors and government entities urge organizations to measure and disclose ESG metrics. I’ve already covered the broader topic as it relates to external reporting and how financial planning and analysis groups are likely to own this mandate going forward. (It’s mainly been a marketing and... Read More

Topics: FP&A, Office of Finance, ESG

Adopt the Fast Follower Paradigm for Finance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 July 2022
Although the digital transformation of the finance department was a topic of discussion before 2020, it became a front-and-center issue as organizations locked down and in-office interactions became impossible. Finance and accounting departments were immediately confronted with a challenge because of their limited adoption of technology that would support a virtual working environment. As our... Read More

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

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