ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | Performance Management (2)

Finance Can Get a Big Advantage from Big Data

Posted by Robert Kugel on 16 November 2013

All the hubbub around big data and analytics has many senior finance executives wondering what the big deal is and what they should do about it. It can be especially confusing because much of what’s covered and discussed on this topic is geared toward technologists and others working outside of Finance, in areas such as sales, marketing and risk management. But finance executives need to position...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Predictive Analytics, Customer Experience, Fraud, Governance, GRC, Office of Finance, audit, Controller, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Management, Operational Intelligence, CFO, compliance, finance, Risk, Financial Performance Management, financial risk management

Tidemark Unifies New Generation of Business Planning Software

Posted by Robert Kugel on 01 November 2013

Tidemark announced the release of the Fall 2013 version of its eponymous cloud-based application that my colleague assessed earlier in 2013. This new release adds capabilities for labor planning and expense management as well profitability modeling and analysis. These two areas of planning and analysis are common to all businesses. The new release adds features that enhance the software’s ability...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, Reporting, Controller, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, In-memory, Workforce Performance, CFO, Tidemark, Financial Performance Management, financial reporting, FPM, Integrated Business Planning

CEOs and Executives Need Business Planning Software

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 October 2013

Business planning is a new software category. These applications enable senior executives to integrate all the plans of business units into a single, integrated view, which helps them have more accurate plans, do more insightful what-if planning, achieve greater agility in reacting to changing business and economic conditions, and execute plans in a more coordinated fashion than was possible....

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Predictive Analytics, Office of Finance, Reporting, Budgeting, Controller, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, In-memory, Workforce Performance, CFO, Financial Performance Management, financial reporting, FPM, Integrated Business Planning

Eliminating the Strategy/Execution Disconnect

Posted by Robert Kugel on 19 August 2013

This is the beginning of the season when companies that are on a calendar year begin their strategic and long-term planning. Ventana Research performed an extensive investigation in this area with our long-range planning benchmark research. Strategic and long-range planning is a process and discipline that companies use to determine the best strategy for succeeding in the markets they serve and...

Topics: Big Data, Master Data Management, Performance Management, Planning, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Reporting, Budgeting, dashboard, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, CFO, Data, CEO, Financial Performance Management, FPM

Pricing, Planning and Performance Management Software Creates Business Value

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 July 2013

People who don’t spend much time analyzing the software market may have trouble understanding the differences between products in a given software category or the difference between two categories. This happens because vendors and commentators use the same words to describe different depths of functionality and degrees of comprehensiveness in one type of application. As well, there can be...

Topics: Performance Management, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, dashboard, PRO, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CFO, Supply Chain, CEO, demand management, FPM, S&OP

Planview Improves Potential of Long-Range Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 11 June 2013

Planview recently announced general availability of Planview Enterprise 11. The new release enhances the user experience through a comprehensive redesign of the interface to promote ease of use. The changes are intended to facilitate an integrated approach to long-range planning of capital projects and major corporate initiatives across departments. There’s an important difference between...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, Planview, Reporting, FEI, FERF CEO, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CFO, Financial Performance Management, FPM

The Importance of Managing Details in Long-Range Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 15 April 2013

Ventana Research recently completed an in-depth benchmark research project on long-range planning. As I define it, long-range planning is the formal quantification of the more conceptual strategic plan. It makes specific assumptions and expresses in numbers how a company expects its strategy will play out over time. Almost all (95%) of those participating in the research see a need to make...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, Reporting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, CFO, CEO, Financial Performance Management, FPM

Addressing Key Operational Risk Requirements

Posted by Robert Kugel on 13 March 2013

I’ve frequently commented on the artificiality of the emerging software category of governance, risk and compliance (GRC). The term is used to a cover a combination of what were once viewed as stand-alone software categories, including IT governance, audit documentation and industry-specific compliance management, to name three examples. While it’s still common for specific types of software to...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Predictive Analytics, Customer Experience, Governance, GRC, Management, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, compliance, finance, Risk, financial risk management, IT Risk Management, Sarbanes Oxley, SOX

Long-Range Planning Does Not Work in Isolation

Posted by Robert Kugel on 11 March 2013

Ventana Research completed an in-depth benchmark research project on long-range planning recently. As I define it, long-range planning is the formal quantification of the strategic plan and how that strategy is expected to play out over a period of time. The benchmark demonstrated that there’s room for improvement in almost every aspect of the long-range planning process. Almost all (95%) of...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Office of Finance, Reporting, Uncategorized, CFO, CEO, Financial Performance Management, FPM

A Profile of Strategic and Long-Range Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 March 2013

Ventana Research recently completed an in-depth benchmark research project on long-range planning. As part of the research we had discussions with CFOs and those involved in financial planning and analysis about their company’s strategic and long-range planning processes, which pointed to the need for clarity in using the terms “strategic planning” and “long-range planning.”

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, Reporting, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, CFO, CEO, Financial Performance Management, FPM

Profit Velocity’s New Dimension in Managing Profitability

Posted by Robert Kugel on 20 February 2013

Profit Velocity Solutions’ PV Accelerator is an analytic application designed to enable capital-intensive companies to consistently achieve substantially wider margins and higher return on assets (ROA). Companies in industries such as specialty chemicals, building materials, integrated steel mills and silicon chip fabrication (to name just four) routinely fail to make the right decisions about...

Topics: Performance Management, Sales, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, PV Accelerator, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Price Optimization, Profit Velocity, Profitability, Software, S&OP

What Every CEO Needs to Know About IT

Posted by Robert Kugel on 18 November 2012

The business/IT divide is a barrier that prevents most companies from achieving their true performance potential. The divide has remained a constant impediment since the dawn of business computing six decades ago. It’s not necessary for a CEO of a company to be able to write Java code or master the intricacies of an ERP or sales compensation application. However, that CEO must master the basics...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, competition, executive, Operational Performance, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, In-memory, Workforce Performance, CFO, IT, CEO, FPM

Building Your Workforce Into a Strong Tribe

Posted by Mark Smith on 15 November 2012

TribeHR has brought to market an HR application suite that uses social collaboration to empower workers and managers to perform tasks that might once have been done mostly by HR professionals, or not done at all. The software-as-a-service-based TribeHR application helps businesses with fewer than 500 employees with recruiting, applicant tracking, onboarding, performance and goal setting, and time...

Topics: Performance Management, Human Capital Management, Recruiting, Social Collaboration, Operational Performance, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Hiring, HR, TribeHR

Using Maturity Assessments to Improve Performance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 October 2012

The idea of devising and using maturity assessments to improve business performance has been a staple of management, functional and strategic consultants for decades. It’s based on two unassailable principles. One is the general assertion that companies differ in their ability to do anything along a range from nonexistent to advanced. The second is that at any time it’s possible for a...

Topics: Performance Management, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Customer Experience, Governance, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, benchmark, FPM

SAP Takes Business and Finance Mobile Using SAP HANA

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 October 2012

SAP has inaugurated a new series of business applications it calls Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) OnDemand as a cloud-based subscription service. The applications are part of SAP’s EPM version 10 suite, which it introduced last year. It’s a first step in what is likely to be a portfolio of general-purpose, lightweight and relatively low-cost apps designed to be used on mobile devices....

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Sales Performance, SAP, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, expense, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Business Applications, FPM, HANA

Oracle Fusion Financials: Boring is Cool

Posted by Robert Kugel on 16 October 2012

There weren’t any headlines (or even many tweets) about Oracle Fusion Financials emanating from this year’s Oracle OpenWorld (#OOW12) conference. Maybe that’s by design, because it’s not in Oracle’s best interest to kick up a lot of dust about ERP migration. The financial applications software market is mature, and market share leaders such as Oracle have less interest in getting customers to...

Topics: Performance Management, ERP, Office of Finance, financial, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Oracle, Workday, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft

Making Better Use of Ratios in Analytics

Posted by Robert Kugel on 17 August 2012

For the past several years Ventana Research has focused more on analytics and their importance to improving business performance. We’ve done extensive benchmark research in business analytics, detailing how they are used generally in business and in major functional areas of companies as well as their application in specific industries. We adopted this focus because technology advances are...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, Modeling, Office of Finance, Budgeting, driver-based, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, In-memory, Workforce Performance, best pracices, business value, cash management, challenge, financial planning

Anaplan is on a Mission for Planning Driven Performance Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 10 August 2012

When it comes to the task of managing performance, many organizations still find themselves fixated on the past rather than planning for improvement in the future. When performance management processes operate efficiently, technology to support activities such as modeling and analytics can optimize outcomes and help align them to targeted goals and objectives. This might seem trivial or easily...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Sales, Sales Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC)

Companies Need Unified Approach to GRC for IT

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 July 2012

One of the most important trends in business over the past 20 years has been the broadening use of information technology to manage and support activities. In the early decades of business computing, companies developed islands of automation for largely numeric functions such as billing, inventory management and accounting. Each ran on a proprietary system and engaged the time of a relative...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Predictive Analytics, Customer Experience, Governance, GRC, Management, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), compliance, finance, Risk, financial risk management, IT Risk Management

Operational Risk Management Is a New Imperative

Posted by Robert Kugel on 29 June 2012

Risk has always been an integral part of business, but our recent Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) benchmark research shows that companies deal with risk with varying degrees of effectiveness – especially operational risk. A majority of companies lag in their overall GRC maturity, as I covered in a recent blog post. Operational risk management should be of greater interest to executives...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Customer Experience, Governance, GRC, Management, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, compliance, finance, Risk, financial risk management