Lowering the total cost-of-ownership is top-of-mind when companies are comparing business intelligence solutions. However, after the purchase of a BI solution it’s difficult to lower TCO. Without careful planning, BI projects can grow and change in scope, which increases the investment in consulting services and maintenance fees. This often results in higher TCO than initially anticipated. While TCO is certainly a key concern at the time of purchase, it’s inconsequential if a company is not getting long-term value out of its BI solution.
New Research on Spreadsheet Usage for Budgeting and Planning in Midsize Organizations
by John Colbert
Originally published September 15, 2009, b-eye-network.com
Over the past ten years, BPM Partners has closely tracked the usage and benefits of analytically oriented software applications in all areas of business performance management. The budgeting and planning processes have been among the prime beneficiaries of dedicated applications. However, most software vendors first developed performance management applications with the large enterprise in mind, given the high price points and maintenance fees they could achieve in that target market segment.
I was recently asked by an incoming CFO to provide my opinion on what the ideal CFO should be focused on. Today, the CFO is much more than an accountant and reporter of earnings, there is the opportunity to provide strategic impact in collaborating with the management team to shape the business. The below recommendations for those aspiring to be the perfect CFO, incorporate ideas from peers and experts via a LinkedIn survey.
When Data Can’t Be Trusted, Master Data Management Becomes “Plan B”
For some time now, data has been moving around the enterprise at a faster pace. Banks, retailers, communications companies, healthcare providers and high-tech firms – they all have a more urgent need to share data across business applications, end users and core systems. The emergence of new technologies, most notably message bus solutions, facilitates these new levels of data exchange. But this data sharing reveals other problems, namely different versions of the same data.
