In the wake of the past year’s usual crop of failed ERP implementations, I’ve read a couple of blogs that bemoan the fact that ERP systems are not nearly as user-friendly or intuitive as the mobile apps that everyone loves. I’ve complained about this aspect of ERP, and our research confirms that ERP systems are viewed as cumbersome: Just one in five companies (21%) said it is easy to make changes to ERP systems while one-third (33%) said making changes is difficult or very difficult. Yet as with many such technology topics, addressing the difficulty in working with ERP systems is not as straightforward as one might hope. ERP software vendors must make it easier, less expensive and less risky for customers to adapt the systems they buy to their changing business needs. To do this, vendors must design products to be more configurable. The goal should be that organizations can make changes and add new capabilities to their ERP system in far less time than it takes today and without having to engage outside consultants.
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Topics:
Mobile,
SAP,
ERP,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Oracle,
Business Performance Management (BPM),
CFO,
Financial Performance Management (FPM),
Infor,
Workday,
Social,
business process,
FPM,
Intacct
Our benchmark research on enterprise spreadsheets explores the pitfalls that await companies that use desktop spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel in repetitive, collaborative enterprise-wide processes. Because people are so familiar with Excel and therefore are able to quickly transform their finance or business expertise into a workable spreadsheet for modeling, analysis and reporting, desktop spreadsheets became the default choice. Individuals and organizations resist giving up their spreadsheets, so software vendors have come up with adaptations that embrace and extend their use. I’ve long advocated finding user-friendly spreadsheet alternatives.
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Topics:
GRC,
Office of Finance,
Operational Performance Management (OPM),
Reporting,
enterprise spreadsheet,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Business Performance Management (BPM),
Customer Performance Management (CPM),
Financial Performance Management (FPM),
Information Applications (IA),
Information Management (IM),
Risk,
Sales Performance Management (SPM),
Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM),
Workforce Performance Management (WPM),
benchmark,
Financial Performance Management
Senior finance executives and finance organizations that want to improve their performance must recognize that technology is a key tool for doing high-quality work. To test this premise, imagine how smoothly your company would operate if all of its finance and administrative software and hardware were 25 years old. In almost all cases the company wouldn’t be able to compete at all or would be at a substantial disadvantage. Having the latest technology isn’t always necessary, but even though software doesn’t wear out in a physical sense, it has a useful life span, at the end of which it needs replacement. As an example, late in 2013 a major U.K. bank experienced two system-wide failures in rapid succession caused by its decades-old mainframe systems; these breakdowns followed a similarly costly failure in 2012. For years the cost and risk of replacing these legacy systems kept management from taking the plunge. What they didn’t consider were the cost and risk associated with keeping the existing systems going. Our new research agenda for the Office of Finance attempts to find a balance between the leading edge and the mainstream that will help businesses find practical solutions.
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Topics:
Big Data,
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
Governance,
GRC,
Office of Finance,
Budgeting,
close,
Tax,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
In-memory,
Business Performance Management (BPM),
CFO,
Financial Performance Management (FPM),
Risk,
CEO,
Financial Performance Management,
FPM
