Most companies will attempt to analyse their business requirements, in-depth, before implementation. It’s the logical thing to do, yet few know how to approach this activity in a structured way. Simply documenting the requirements as a “to do” list of bullet-points, is woefully inadequate. A clear business vision, coupled with a sequential road-map of activities and the correct control structures are a must. The people entrusted with these tasks should possess all the qualities of a competent OLAP analyst. The ability to understand business logic and requirements, capture them clearly and succinctly and then communicate these to the technical team, in meaningful technical language, requires an advanced skill set.

To understand more about business analytics and its importance to your organisation, download this white paper.

Master Data, the underlying information surrounding each of your transactions: account, cost centre, product, customer, rate etc. is often housed differently and in different systems throughout the enterprise. Effecting changes to this data, uniformly and concurrently across many disparate systems is virtually impossible in today’s fluid business environment. The inevitable consequence of a change to Master Data, is a frenzied cycle of updating and reconciling as departments, with the help of ETL tools and spreadsheets, try to get their data in sync, before the next change hits them. The end result of all this un-coordinated activity is that reports seldom agree, arguments ensue and productivity dips while the mess is sorted out.  

Understand more about Master Data challenges and how to overcome them by downloading this white paper.

In the wake of recent financial scandals, statutory reporting requirements are now more strictly monitored and enforced than ever before. The margins for error are slim and non-compliance is harshly dealt with. Accurate management reporting will also be impeded if the business processes and systems surrounding financial consolidation are not geared to cope with this highly technical event. A breakdown typically occurs between finance and IT, with both departments equally frustrated by the inadequacy of existing systems to deliver the required level of sophistication. The problem is further compounded by the fear of change. Most managers shy away from the anticipated pain of implementing a new system to replace the old, despite glaring inefficiencies. This fear is magnified on the playing field of financial consolidation, where the stakes are high.  

Spreadsheets are the primary vehicle used by many companies as they embark on their budgeting and forecasting journeys. On the face of it, they appear to be well suited to carry out this crucial function, allowing for fairly complex analysis, modelling and aggregation in the hands of the skilled user. However, delve a little deeper into the world of spreadsheet-based planning and discover how, and why, they fall well short of offering an effective solution. Quite simply, the complexities surrounding the planning process have outstripped the capabilities of spreadsheet systems. Error prone and difficult to control across multiple users, spreadsheets are rapidly losing their appeal. With the tendency to inhibit rather than promote inter-company collaboration, so fundamental to effective planning, many companies are turning to a more sophisticated solution….

Leverage off our experience gained in this industry by downloading this discussion paper.

A successful project implementation is still at risk of imploding, post go-live, if a carefully planned Sustain and Support initiative is not put in place. In the systems world, the only constant is change. Even If your business is left holding the reins of a thoroughbred ERP or BPM solution, without proper grooming and rider training, the stallion won’t stay the course. Before deciding which model to adopt with regards to your Sustain and Support function, i.e. in-house vs out-sourced structure, a careful analysis of your requirements and available resource is vital. The full extent of a Sustain and Support team’s function is, more often than not, underestimated. The tasks are numerous and potentially complex. Without a formal structure in place, maintenance of the system will fall to individuals ill-suited to performing this function. You’ve built the machine. Now keep it oiled.   

Converting data from legacy systems and acquiring it to migrate to the new system can be tricky. Some implementations may also require historical data to be converted, for example a planning implementation will require prior year's numbers to be captured for comparative purposes. Managing the way this data is extracted, collated and input into the new system should not be underestimated. Each of these areas require attention.

To learn more about the managing these aspects of an implementation, download this white paper now.

A cost versus benefit analysis will normally precede any new project, forming part of the "Business Case". The Business Case approach will depend on whether the perceived benefits are revenue enhancing or cost reducing or both. Whatever the case, BPM implementations are designed for rapid deployment, benefits realisation and payback. The return on investment (ROI) will be recognisable within a far shorter timeframe than, for example, an ERP implementation. This white paper discusses the topic of BPM ROI. How to achieve it, how to recognise it and how to measure it.

To learn more, download the full white paper here.

It is important that the right people consider the right questions when proposing a business case for an EPM Project. The Journey Plan Development Framework ensures the most efficient use of time and knowledge and provides clear insight into the EPM journey.

Download this Journey Plan Development Framework paper.

ReportSource’s Decision Support for Churn Management solution provides analytics whereby customer dissatisfaction due to issues can be quickly identified and rectified via appropriate and quickly executed retention strategies.

Using customer and product analytics, call centre managers can manage profitable customer retention strategies via interactive dashboards. Read about ReportSource's 3-part solution for managing churn in the Telecoms Industry.

On-Line Analytic Processing (OLAP) systems such as Hyperion Essbase go hand-in-hand with On-Line Transactional Processing (OLTP), otherwise known as ERP, systems. They combine speed and performance for reporting in a multi-user environment.

So, you are a senior finance professional and your organisation is undergoing a merger or acquisition change.

How do you survive and prosper in the new, enlarged, organisation?

Strategic Finance

According to the Accounting Standards Board (ASB), companies must improve in the areas of forward-looking information, risk management, KPI and off-balance sheet resource reporting.

Hyperion Strategic Finance provides companies with the ability to address these issues by understanding their impact on alternative corporate strategies.

Consolidation of financial results is an important matter in any Finance Manager’s books.  The dynamic nature of many companies means that this task doesn’t get any easier.  Different data analyses, internal reorganisations and acquisitions all add to the increasing complexity of this process.

Many consolidation processes have evolved with the business and are often reliant on key individuals to deliver a set of results.  Even where a reputable consolidation package is used, the linkage between the consolidation and the local results is often inefficient.

Consolidation logic may be hidden in desktop applications, data is reprocessed to overcome integrity issues and collection mechanisms need constant attention to adapt to the changing business needs.     

Hyperion’s FDM product addresses these issues by providing an “out of box” solution administered by the finance function. 

Robust data collection and integrity controls help to deliver confidence in the results and a low cost solution to compliance.

Information is power and the better informed are more likely to succeed.

Much of the information a business needs to be more successful actually resides within its own systems.  But being able to marshal that data into practical information is often difficult. 

Structural change creates its own challenges.  The business may plan its strategy on structures that have become inconsistent with those of the financial ledgers.  Acquisitions will include hierarchies and data that are complex to integrate into existing methods, diminishing the potential synergies.

Whilst information is often visible at the local level, enterprise-wide views are often sketchy and time-consuming to deliver.

This is further complicated by a plethora of codes for a common entity (e.g. a customer) and with planning processes geared around the financial year, rather than the business cycle, the effectiveness of support is seriously impaired.   

When this affects the enterprise’s view of, say, profitability across its range of services (e.g. by customer, product, brand etc.) it strikes at the very heart of the organisation and its future welfare.

So why is a solution to this problem so elusive and is there help at hand? 

Download the Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Overview.

All the information you need is held within your operational systems. To enable true BI, you need to make that information accessible and usable as part of the daily roles of knowledge workers throughout your organisation.

Just as ERP Systems have embedded themselves into our work places, so too will Business Intelligence Systems including pre-built BI Applications.

Integrated, consistent and pervasive BI is at the top of every CIO’s agenda. Choosing a solution, as always, comes down to the consideration of effort, time and cost.

Oracle’s pre-built, comprehensive and hot-pluggable BI Applications will enable true insight to action in your organisation through better, faster and cheaper BI.

Are you looking for a consolidation solution? Can’t decide whether Hyperion Enterprise or Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) is right for your organisation? Similarly, if you are a Hyperion Enterprise user, should you implement HFM as a replacement consolidation application?

Both Hyperion Enterprise and HFM offer best-in-class consolidation intelligence but there are some key features which makes each tool unique and specifically suited to different businesses. Which one is right for your organisation?

Oracle is advising Oracle Financial Analyser (OFA) users to migrate to Hyperion, as they will be de-supporting the OFA application in the future.

Hyperion Smart View for MS Office is an add-in, which provides connectivity between the entire suite of Hyperion Performance Management Products and MS Office documents.

In this solution, Essbase takes much of the reporting load from the HFM application servers, providing better speed-of-thought drill-down than pointing the reporting tools directly at HFM. This ensures that the HFM application servers are able to support what they are best at – calculating and consolidating the financial results.  The solution also provides further flexibility by feeding some data-sets not needed in HFM (such as the Plan) directly into Essbase to support comparative reporting.

ReportSource offers holistic services which include finance transformation solutions that can be delivered as an integrated part of a system implementation or as a separate engagement focused entirely on process, procedure and best practice.