A presentation made by Gavin Allen, Managing Director LucaNet UK & Ireland at Accountex 2016 - the subject of this CIMA sponsored presentation made by Gavin Allen, was how the right technology can deliver maximum benefits and returns within the Office of Finance.

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How the right technology can deliver the holy grail
“Out of the box, fully integrated P&L, Balance Sheet & Cash flow”
A Presentation by Gavin Allen
Managing Director, LucaNet UK & Ireland

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Financial Performance Management

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Is Life InThe Office Of Finance Any Easier?
Despite advances in technology, the core Office Of
Finance challenges remain:
• Financial Close and Management
• Consolidation: Management, Financial, Statutory
• Reporting
• Planning: Both Financial and Operational
• Budgeting
• Strategic Forecasting
• Rolling Forecasting
• Key Performance Indicators and Monitoring
• Analysis
• Disclosure
• Governance, Regulation and Compliance
• Continued Legislation and Accounting Standards

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Beyond Functionality
Small or enterprise scale organisation, the Office Of
Finance challenges must be addressed beyond mere
functionality:
• The right technology should be easily accessible to all organisations
• Affordable solutions
• Flexible procurement options
• No loss of functionality in solution versus scale
• Office Of Finance functions in often in much smaller organisations face
greater demands
• Community feel vital
• Non-technical, finance friendly
• Client engagement from day one, ownership of solution(s)
• Self-sufficiency
• Rapid implementation
• Swift realisation of Returns on Investment
• Agility
• Modern technology and deployment options

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What AreThe Options?
So you realise the need for change, what comes next?
• Evaluate the market and the plethora of Financial Performance
Management vendors
• Engage in the standard processes of demonstrations, presentations,
proof of concept builds etc.
• Internally assess each solution in turn: do they really make a difference?
• Exhaust several man hours going through said process above.
• Take the leap of faith and select a vendor – hope it all turns out okay!
• Divert key financial resources to work alongside vendor for several
months.
• Perform countless rounds of end user testing.
• Evaluate post implementation success and outcomes.
• Hopefully prove your return on investment originally anticipated.
Or despite the need for change, do nothing
• Retain existing technology; increase headcount
• Seek assistance from your ERP provider

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Technology: Help or Hindrance?
To Help
• Reduce the time taken in the financial close processes
• Release valuable time within the Office Of Finance
• Simplify the most complex of process, especially forecasting
• Mitigate the risks of spreadsheets usage
• Supported platforms with modern architecture
• Empower the Office Of Finance; collaboration
To Hinder
• Additional training and education requirements
• Potentially change your current processes to align to technology
• Reliance on 3rd party consultancy
• Investment costs
• Diversion of critical Office Of Finance resources during implementation
• Not finance friendly – not spreadsheet like

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What AreThe Risks?
Key risk factors to consider
• Time
• Costs
• Resources
• Fear
• Uncertainty
• Doubt
• Solution adoption
• Training and education needs

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What AreThe Benefits?
With the RIGHT technology however…
• DecreaseTime
• Reduce Costs
• Release Resources
• Mitigate Fear
• Alleviate Uncertainty
• Destroy Doubt
• Embrace Solution adoption
• EasyTraining and education needs

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Overwhelming Choices!

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Bombarded WithTechnology Messages
In an industry crowded with terminology…
• Cloud
• Hosted Cloud
• Dimensionality
• Driver Based Planning
• In Memory; Relational; Hybrid
• Financial Analytics
• Business Intelligence
• Mobile
• Etc, etc..
What does all this mean when considering the
challenges faced by the Office Of Finance??

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BackTo Spreadsheet Comfort
So it’s back to our “Friend”, the spreadsheet?
• Spreadsheets are GREAT for..
• Personal consolidations, plans and analysis
• Rough-and-ready reports
• Checking the integrity of static raw data
• Analysis of static data sets
• Spreadsheets are BAD for..
• Collaborative consolidation, plans and reports
• Management information
• Managing financial processes
• Performance analysis across several business segments
The bottom line : you spend huge amounts of time, energy and
resources fighting against a tool that simply wasn't designed to do
what you do for a living in the Office Of Finance

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9 out of 10 business still use
spreadsheets to consolidate,
report, plan and analyse

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Spreadsheets ARE an important
part of the business, but often are
pushed beyond their means.

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Here are seven reasons to
upgrade from spreadsheets in the
Office Of Finance

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REASON #1
Data
Your spreadsheet is not a database. It’s easy to
get an answer from spreadsheets, but it is not
necessarily the right answer…it’s static data

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REASON #2
Accuracy
When working from version 108 of a
spreadsheet, imagine how many errors could be
affecting your analysis and decision making.

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REASON #3
Scalability
With no plan to migrate off spreadsheets, you
are harming the companies potential opportunity
for growth and expansion.

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REASON #4
Risk
To jog your memory.
A spreadsheet error by the London Organising Committee (Locog) for the
2012 Olympic Games led to four synchronised swimming events being
massively oversold. An employee accidently keyed in ‘20,000’ rather than
10,000 available tickets. Locog spent the Christmas period contacting
disappointed ticket holders to offer alternatives.

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REASON #5
Time
When migrating off of spreadsheets, and onto a
true Performance Management platform, you will
see a massive return on time investment.

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REASON #6
Flexibility
To properly manage your business and it’s
future, you need access to both past data, and
future possibilities by running scenario-based
strategic planning

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REASON #7
Agility
Agility is different to flexibility. Agility is the
ability to see an issue or opportunity and take
action or course correct to find a solution.

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The Often Forgotten Arts
Returning to the Office Of Finance
• Financial Consolidation
• Beyond Aggregation
• Inter-Company
• Ownerships and Investments
• Control Of Close Process
• Planning
• Financial Integration of P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow
• Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting Are Different Process
• Operational Plans = Greater Levels Of Detail
• Beyond Months
• Reporting and Analysis
• First & Foremost Cell Based, Spreadsheet Like
• Embrace Spreadsheets For Information Presentation
• AccessToTransactional Information From ERP
• Analytics & Visualisation Secondary
• Disclosure Management, Compliance, iXBRL

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ThankYou
GAVIN ALLEN
Managing Director
UK & Ireland
LucaNet (UK) Limited
Global House
1, Ashley Avenue
Epsom
Surrey. KT18 5AD
info@lucanet.co.uk
www.lucanet.co.uk
Twitter: @lucanetuk
Find Us On Linked In
Search for
LucaNet (UK) Limited

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Q&A