Quiz: data analytics for executives

Break down data silos and improve business planning

The amount of data generated by finance, sales and operations teams is vast and complex, making it difficult for everyone to work together, plan and make data-driven decisions. The time spent on extracting data from multiple systems, formatting into spreadsheets and then loading into other programs is excruciating, and the time lost doing it, is taking its toll. Welcome to the world of data silos.

Set and forget budgets don’t cut it. Business success demands budget forecasting.

When expectations built into budgets are not delivering, then it’s time to revise. Often business people don’t realise there is an issue for weeks because viewing budget vs actual numbers can involve a lot of manual work - so it’s put in the too hard basket. Finance pulls the actual numbers from their ERP to close the month end, then manually add them to the budget figures in spreadsheets and do the comparison. That same team who has spent two months bedding down a budget won't be keen to poke the ‘budgeting’ bear so soon after it's been approved. Yet the budget is rapidly becoming out of date.

How measuring human capital value added can bring a competitive advantage

Change is a constant in business and in the last two years, change has been exponential. People are navigating new channels, new tools, new customer behaviour and new workplaces so it’s reasonable for many business leaders to question some of the metrics being measured.

How to improve your business budgeting processes

It’s no secret that completing the annual budget is a headache for CFOs.