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        Robert Kugel's Analyst Perspectives

        This year’s Dreamforce is likely include a focus on the value of moving a company’s accounting systems and related record management processes (for instance, invoicing and ordering) to the cloud. Salesforce.com’s annual conference is never short on hyperbole and promotion of everything cloud, which can be off-putting to staid finance department types (like me). And while some departments (notably Sales) have been quick to seize on the advantages of using the cloud, others (notably Finance) have...

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        Topics: Office of Finance, finance cloud, Cloud Computing, Business Performance Management (BPM), finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), accounting software, financial systems

        Ventana Research recently completed groundbreaking benchmark research on how finance organizations use analytics these days. Of course, analytics have been a mainstay of finance organizations since people started using accounting ratios to assess the health and performance of a business. Yet perhaps because traditional analytics are so deeply entrenched, finance departments execute the basics well but don’t take the next step to fully utilize the power of information technology to use analytics...

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        Topics: Predictive Analytics, SAP, SAS, Office of Finance, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Analytics, Business Intelligence, IBM, Oracle, Business Performance Management (BPM), Cognos, finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Sales Performance Management (SPM), Financial Performance Management

        I think one of best epigrams attributed to Mark Twain is, “Everyone talks about the weather but nobody ever does something about it.” This also has relevance to the situation with corporate planning and budgeting. Bemoaning its lack of value and calling for some sort of change goes back a long way, but few companies have matured their process. In the 1970s something called “zero-based budgeting” was all the rage in business and accounting periodicals. It was energetically advocated by President...

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        Topics: Planning, Predictive Analytics, Sales, Office of Finance, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Budgeting, contingency planning, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance Management (BPM), CFO, finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Sales Performance Management (SPM), Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM), Financial Performance Management, Integrated Business Planning

        People who perform the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) function in the finance organization put together and update the budgets and forecasts. In many companies, the “A” portion of this activity gets short shrift. That’s because the mechanical process of pulling together and collating the data takes up so much time that very little remains for analysis. The result is that planning and budgeting is a less useful business tool than it could be. Improving FP&A can give executives and...

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        Topics: FP&A, Finance Analytics, Financial Applications, Business Performance Management (BPM), CFO, finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Integrated Business Planning

        SAP is in the process of acquiring certain financial disclosure management software assets from cundus, a German provider of BI and performance management software. SAP will be buying cundus’ Financial Statement Factory and informationCollector, which together manage the collaborative creation and editing of financial and management reports using both structured and unstructured information. SAP expects to complete the deal by the end of 2010.

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        Topics: ERP, Financial Applications, Business Performance Management (BPM), CFO, finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Financial Performance Management

        One of the prominent salesforce.com partners on display at the recent Dreamforce in San Francisco was FinancialForce.com. It’s one of a growing list of providers of in-the-cloud accounting and finance packages built on the Force.com platform. Like other of these accounting vendors (such as CompiereIntacctNetsuite and - to some extent and eventually– Workday), it aims principally at companies that have outgrown entry-level accounting software such as Intuit’s QuickBooks. (I covered the...

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        Topics: ERP, Financial Applications, Cloud Computing, Business Performance Management (BPM), CFO, finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM)

        Years ago I was given a tour of a company’s factory by the CEO who was credited with engineering its recent turnaround. We were walking along a gallery one story above the shop floor when he pointed down to it and told me that when he first looked down on this scene he saw people dashing madly back and forth. Rather than taking that as a good sign of a busy factory, he said it was a clear indication to him of how inefficient the operation was and why the company was losing money. He immediately...

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        Topics: Sustainability, Environment Management, CFO, finance, Green

        Ventana Research recently completed its 2010 Financial Performance Management Value Index of the major financial performance management suites. Financial performance management (FPM) is the process of addressing the often overlapping issues around people, process, information and information technology that affect how well finance organizations operate and support the activities of the rest of the organization. FPM deals with the full cycle of finance department activities including planning,...

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        Topics: SAP, ERP, Financial Applications, CFO, finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Financial Performance Management

        Ventana Research has just announced its Value Index for Financial Performance Management (FPM) for 2010. Our value indexes are user-focused assessments of how well software vendors and packages enable companies to improve their execution of core processes. This one is designed to help businesses, especially the finance organization, evaluate the FPM software suites offered by major vendors in the context of their specific needs. Ventana Research defines financial performance management as the...

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        Topics: ERP, Office of Finance, Financial Applications, Business Technology, Business Performance Management (BPM), Business Planning, CFO, finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Corporate Finance, Financial Performance Management

        In July, Australia adopted what it calls "Standard Business Reporting" (SBR), which is designed to reduce the reporting burden imposed on businesses by the country's federal and state governments by streamlining the information submission ("lodging" for the Oz) process. In essence, the country is on its way to a file-once-use-many approach whereby companies provide data using a single secure sign-on known as "AUSkey" As of now, SBR reports include the Business Activity Statement, Tax File...

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        Topics: XBRL, Business Performance Management (BPM), finance, Financial Performance Management (FPM), SEC
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        • Ventana Research’s Analyst Perspectives are fact-based analysis and guidance on business, industry and technology vendor trends. Each Analyst Perspective presents the view of the analyst who is an established subject matter expert on new developments, business and technology trends, findings from our research, or best practice insights.

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