Now let’s take a look at the information management landscape facing you today. As we all know, this is a highly complex topic, but for today’s discussion, we’ve divided it into four major categories. The first is planning, which encompasses your budgeting, forecasting, and planning processes. Despite some major advancements in the technology available to support your planning efforts, this is an area where manual processes are still very much in play and an area that CFOs continually list as a major pain point. Opportunities for increasing both efficiency and accuracy are high.The next is analytics, and this is an area that’s expanding – both in terms of what’s expected from the finance department and what technology is making possible. “Rear-view mirror” analysis, or looking at what has already happened in you business, is no longer enough. CFOs are increasingly being asked to deliver information that guides the direction of the company, rather than just reporting on where it has been. Our third category is reporting, and this is also an area where complexity is on the rise. Some of that complexity is due to external mandates, like XBRL or compliance reporting such as IFRS and Sarbanes-Oxley; and some is being driven by internal changes, like the increasing number of companies who must consolidate reports from multiple business units or subsidiaries outside their own borders. With the demand for increased oversight and regulations remaining steady, it’s very likely that the reporting aspect of your jobs will continue to be both dynamic and complex.Our last category – Managing Risk – is a topic that’s getting a great deal of attention these days, in large part because of the regulations and other external reporting requirements that I just mentioned. Until recently, having a comprehensive risk management strategy in place was primarily the domain of very large enterprises. However, the level of business and personal risk that’s now involved is making risk management a priority for organizations of all sizes. It’s fast becoming a requirement, rather than a best practice.
Now let’s take a look at each of these categories in greater detail, starting with planning. It’s unlikely that any of the planning challenges you see here will come as a surprise. For most businesses, budgeting and forecasting cycles simply take too long, and in a surprising number of cases, are only partially automated. Spreadsheets – and all the problems that accompany them – are still the vehicle used by many companies to complete these critical tasks. Accuracy is also a major issue. The inability to accurately predict performance, combined with multiple versions of data, make it more difficult to get key stakeholders to take ownership of plans and ultimately, to tie them back to business performance.AD LIB OPTION: COMMENT ON THE DILBERT CARTOON IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE DOING SO
This graph shows the results of a survey by PWC on how long budgeting and forecasting processes take. The survey shows answers from senior financial executives at 220 organizations with $2 billion plus in revenue from a variety of industries.AD LIB OPTION: ASK THE AUDIENCE HOW THE SURVEY RESULTS COMPARE TO THEIR ORGANIZATION.You can see that the majority of these companies need two to four months to prepare a budget and more than 10 days to generate a forecast. We know from experience that these times can be dramatically reduced.
This next graph is from the same survey and addresses the accuracy question. The majority of companies indicated that their forecasts were off by six to ten percent and that forecast numbers tend to be on the conservative side. This leads to questions about missed opportunities and the role that budget numbers play in driving key stakeholders to under or over-perform. How much might bottom-line business performance improve if expectations were higher, but also realistic?AD LIB OPTION: ASK THE AUDIENCE TO COMPARE THEIR OWN PERFORMANCE . ASK WHAT IMPACT INACCURATE FORECASTS HAVE ON THEIR BUSINESSES.
A key question to answer is “what is the purpose of your annual budgeting and planning process?” AD LIB OPTION: ASK THE AUDIENCE TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION.For many companies, the purpose is to help implement strategy, but organizations often feel they don’t get adequate ROI from budgeting and planning processes. It takes a long time, involves a lot of resources, and often doesn’t achieve the primary goal of supporting the execution of strategic initiatives. The problem is that current processes and technologies don’t facilitate strategic execution. A more collaborative planning process – one that has direct involvement from line-of-business managers – is needed. This leads to more buy-in, more accuracy and more insight.
So how do you get where you need to be? Let’s take a look at some best practices that have been established by experts in this area and our own experiences working with companies to implement technology solutions that address planning challenges. The number one best practice for transforming your budgeting and planning processes is to link it to everything you do. You want to have your budgeting and planning tied directly to strategic initiatives. This should really be the foundation of your planning strategy. It’s the way to get buy-in from key stakeholders in the organization and ultimately, to add strategic value and deliver ROI. However, there are a number of other steps you must also take before this is possible.For example, you need to have a rolling plan that reflects the dynamic nature of your business, while also focusing on the key factors that drive it. The ability to incorporate “what-if” scenarios into your plans will also make them closer match reality.Another best practice to focus on is ensuring you build plans from the top down as well as from the bottom up. This will also make plans more accurate and encourage stakeholder buy-in, with the result being a single version that your entire business has contributed to and therefore feels ownership of. You don’t want planning to be seen as a process that’s owned by the finance department alone. And from a technology perspective, having a fully integrated budgeting, and strategic planning process is critical. This is the key to dramatically decreasing the time required to produce plans, increasing their accuracy, and creating a tracked “single version of the truth” across your organization.
These best practices can make a difference. You see here some results from research by the Aberdeen group on the impact of performance management solutions, which automate the budgeting, planning, and forecasting process and enable companies to implement the best practices covered on our previous slide. Companies classified as “best in class” when it comes to performance management had decreased time to decision by 23% over the past year, as compared to a 2% decrease for others. They also had a 17% operating profit margin, compared to 14% for all others.
Let’s also take a look at a real-world example from a company you are all likely familiar with. Universal Studios found itself very limited by a spreadsheet-based budgeting and reporting system that was in place. They simply couldn’t keep up with the rising demand for financial and operational analysis. They also couldn’t perform some key tasks, like category and channel management or labor scheduling optimization.By automating their processes and implementing the best practices we’ve discussed, they’ve achieved a 50% reduction in their budgeting cycle, as well as other key benefits like real-time visibility into KPIs and scenario-enabled modeling.
Going to a bit more detail here are some common challenges business we face … Please (audience) pause for a moment and Take a look to replace Common Challenges with your Specific ones your which you may find many are the same.. (The walk them thru and for just one or two as a practical example, based on our real experience.)
The Infor10 CPM is actually quite unique as single application architecture enables you to start with any single problem (Budgeting, Planning, Consolidations, reporting, etc) and then leverage both the toolset and energy you have used to deploy it for the next problem on your list. Simple integration with any existing open source system combined. At Sherwood we call this the mosaic approach where we have the whole picture outlined and can start painting in the detail in the pictures parts as we chose. Call to action statement : Please talk to use later about this as it is one of the strength of this software and we have many customers with experiences.
So lets take a look in more detail at the parts. As you walk thru pausing on major points here consider these features and the issue you face now in your business process . ( take a couple of minutes to steps few a few in each box)
And again here is are a few of US Brands with testimonial examples of different value they got from Infor 10 CPM As we step thru these I will note for you the challenges and how they were met. I can share later over a coffee some of the local Big Brand Thai success story projects we have done personally such as PTTEP and Krungthai AXA and Centara and more
"Infor's FPM suite is particularly strong in performing integrated business planning, budgeting, and forecasting, as well as in creating and managing scorecards and connecting high-level strategy with specific business unit and individual goals," says Robert Kugel, senior vice president at Ventana Research.
I think they have given me a few minutes if anyone has any questions. And I will also be free to talk to you one-on-one after this meeting or if want to call me later. Please get my business card or use my number on our web site as I would love to talk to you. Thank you Then look to the meeting coordinator to hand back the lead