The Need for Spend Performance Management - Part 1
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Discuss business intelligence, integration, compliance and a host of other SAP-related topics – implementation, best practices and resources to negotiate the world of SAP better!
January 6, 2011
October 1, 2010
Software evaluation for activity based costing systems (Part 1 of 2)
I am back with the next blog on profitability analysis and activity based costing (ABC). For the benefit of new readers, I blog on profitability analysis and ABC and you can click here to view the previous blogs on related topics.
First of all, my sincere thanks for your comments on my previous blog - How can IT help in implementing Activity Based Costing? It's really good to get the views from practitioners. One common view in these comments is that the output of ABC system should be relevant and must assist in future decisions. I completely agree to this. It makes all the more important for the business to perform due diligence in identifying the right purpose and the right software for their ABC system. The other view is ABC hasn't translated from concept to practice for large number of companies. I believe this will change over time as the ABC software evolves further to deliver more value in terms of relevant and insightful information it provides at a lesser TCO.
Continue reading " Software evaluation for activity based costing systems (Part 1 of 2) " »
August 5, 2010
How SAP can innovate and deliver best of breed BI product portfolio to address today's business needs
While BI vendors have delivered significant improvements in product functionality, architecture and performance, they are yet to deliver significant functionality in new areas in line with business needs. Some of the areas include search based BI data discovery tools, support for collaborative decision making. Here, I will discuss what opportunities that are available for SAP to innovate and establish its leadership position in BI product market in view of current strengths of SAP products.
May 9, 2010
IT Trends in Manufacturing
The recent global recession has forced many manufacturing companies to look into extreme cost cutting measures and liquidate their inventories. With the world now in a stage of economic recovery, consumers are opening their wallets again and are demanding more goods, leading to an increase in production output for manufacturing organizations. But rather than simply ramping up productivity, workforce and inventory levels to pre global recession levels, many manufacturers are first carefully investigating now how they can accommodate the increasing demand with their existing organization and production assets. After an era and years of industry wider restructuring, with increased globalization, mergers and acquisitions, many global organizations however now come to the rude awakening that their existing tools, structures, processes and data don't provide them the insights they are looking for to make sound strategic and operational decisions.
May 8, 2010
Outcome and value based pricing engagement models
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March 26, 2010
IFRS adoption or convergence goes beyond just being another regulatory mandate
A lot has already been spoken about IFRS. For one reason being that, currently, there are 117 countries that have either adopted or committed to adopt IFRS. But, last month the US SEC announced that companies could start using IFRS no sooner than 2015 - a year after from the earlier timeline of 2014. However, according to a recent survey conducted by KPMG, 49% US executives said they would like the option to adopt IFRS before 2015.
February 26, 2010
How can IT help in implementing Activity Based Costing (Part 2 of 2)?
This week I got a chance to get a view from senior management of two companies on Activity Based Costing (ABC) for their organizations. Neither of these companies is using ABC, nor do they have any plans to go for it in a near future. In this part of the blog series - “How can IT help in implementing Activity Based Costing?”, let’s discuss the perspective of these two companies. Let’s also see how IT can make ABC viable for more and more organizations.
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February 23, 2010
Copenhagen, Kyoto - Do we have something in it for our Business?
Erik Rasmussen, Founder of the Copenhagen Climate Council, explains: "Reducing the emissions that until now have been so linked to our economic growth and betterment will be an enormous, unprecedented global challenge but will also provide significant opportunities for sustainable growth, green jobs, development and innovation."
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February 19, 2010
Win the last mile battle by addressing Performance and Usability of SAP Netweaver based Web apps…PART I of IV- Browser Layer
Historically functional requirements have remained the key focus of organizations working with enterprise applications such as SAP. However, in their race to meet the functional requirements of business users, many times non-functional requirements (NFR) and usability may take back stage and are not updated.
Business demands for flexibility and responsiveness have always put pressure on IT departments to increase the speed at which new applications are created or changes are implemented. Newer tools (such as Portal, MDM, Composites etc.) and new way of architecting (SOA, Virtualization etc.) the solution are being used by IT for being quick and efficient to support business of the enterprise. Each of these new tools and architecture has their own demands for NFR (performance, availability and security) and usability.
From performance point of view, following four key layers play important role:
- Browser layer
- Network layer
- Application server layer
- Database layer
January 31, 2010
How can IT help in implementing Activity Based Costing (Part 1 of 2)?
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December 31, 2009
Activity based costing for profitability analysis (Part 2 of 2)
My previous blogs series “Why do you need profitability analysis?” sets the context for profitability analysis. The next blog “Activity based costing for profitability analysis (Part 1)” highlights the need for Activity Based Costing (ABC) for profitability analysis. Once we are convinced about the need for profitability analysis and ABC, we have to figure out how to go about implementing ABC for our organization. This blog discusses the typical challenges in implementing ABC.
Continue reading " Activity based costing for profitability analysis (Part 2 of 2) " »
December 29, 2009
The new weapon for the CFO’s knights (Part 2 of 3) – Conquering IFRS
In my previous blog of this series, I briefly spoke about the capabilities of SAP EPM financial consolidation tool(s) - inherent as well as the ones over and above legal & management consolidation and reporting functionalities. In the following discussion, I’ll talk about IFRS, the possible solutions for transition and finally share some of our learning’s from an experiment we carried out involving US GAAP and IFRS.
Continue reading " The new weapon for the CFO’s knights (Part 2 of 3) – Conquering IFRS " »
“SAP BPC Owned by Business developed by IT” is it a reality or myth.
Continue reading " “SAP BPC Owned by Business developed by IT” is it a reality or myth. " »
December 7, 2009
Activity based costing for profitability analysis (Part 1 of 2)
In the previous blog series titled - “Why do you need profitability analysis?” we discussed how profitability analysis can help a business analyze the profitability of one’s offerings (product, customer, channels etc); manage costs by identifying the non-value adding activities; and provide a benchmark to measure the output of an improvement initiative.
Continue reading " Activity based costing for profitability analysis (Part 1 of 2) " »
November 10, 2009
SAP BPC: Unified tool for Planning & Consolidation (Part II of II)
In my previous blog, I have discussed pros and cons of SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation as a unified tool for planning and consolidation vs. multiple planning applications. In this blog, I will further illustrate benefit of using SAP BPC for planning and consolidation. SAP BPC as a single application for planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and reporting functionalities, eliminates the need of multiple applications that require manual integration.SAP BPC offers following features and functionality from a single enterprise scale application.
Strategic planning
Budgeting
Forecasting
Statutory consolidation
Reporting & analysis
Predictive analytics
Continue reading " SAP BPC: Unified tool for Planning & Consolidation (Part II of II) " »
The new weapon for the CFO's knights - An Introduction (Part 1 of 3)
Continue reading " The new weapon for the CFO's knights - An Introduction (Part 1 of 3) " »
October 21, 2009
Why do you need profitability analysis? (Part - 2)
In the part 1 of this blog (http://www.infosysblogs.com/sap/2009/09/why_need_profitability_analysi.html#more), we discussed few of the pain points that business are facing today. Moving ahead let’s see how would profitability analysis help solve them and how can such a solution be implemented.
Consider a scenario where your company creates profitability report for its products, product lines, customers, channels and geography; or any combination thereof. You as a sales manager sort the customers based on their profitability and know the most profitable and least profitable customers. You treat your most profitable customers best. You also analyze the unprofitable customers and devise plan either to make them profitable or divest them. You have information about the customer-product profitability and clearly know which products to focus for maximizing the company’s profit.
Continue reading " Why do you need profitability analysis? (Part - 2) " »
October 12, 2009
Enterprise Performance Management – what’s there in it for your organization? – Part 2
So, starting with where we left in the first part (http://www.infosysblogs.com/sap/2009/08/enterprise_performance_managem.html#more). There are a few broad areas that EPM covers at the strategic and operational levels – Strategy Management; Business Planning, Forecasting and Budgeting; Financial Consolidation; Profitability Management; Management Reporting & Analytics for your Business Functions (e.g. Supply Chain Performance Management).
September 25, 2009
SAP BPC: Unified tool for Planning & Consolidation (Part I of II)
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September 22, 2009
The Evolving Financial Consolidation Landscape (Part 2 of 2)
In my previous post, I introduced you to the new ‘financial controlling’ order and how SAP has evolved to keep abreast with the ever changing business requirements, especially the CFO’s office.
Continue reading " The Evolving Financial Consolidation Landscape (Part 2 of 2) " »
September 20, 2009
BCP in ERP Business Processes
September 11, 2009
Why do you need profitability analysis? (Part - 1)
Continue reading " Why do you need profitability analysis? (Part - 1) " »
September 8, 2009
The Evolving Financial Consolidation Landscape (Part 1 of 2)
Continue reading " The Evolving Financial Consolidation Landscape (Part 1 of 2) " »
August 31, 2009
Enterprise Performance Management – what’s there in it for your organization? – Part 1
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