Читать книгу The Financial Controller and CFO's Toolkit - Parmenter David - Страница 8

Many finance teams spend long frustrated hours working with antiquated, error-prone systems – and to make it worse, they follow procedures because they were carried out last month.

Yes, indeed the platform is on fire, and we need to jump off right now. Many performance management processes that I used during my brief time with BP Oil, and helped support as a consultant for Ernst & Whinney, are well and truly broken. I am talking about key performance indicators (KPIs), the annual planning process, forecasting, using outdated technology, and, to round it off, slow month-end and year-end reporting.

These processes have not worked for years – and possibly never worked. The finance teams have presided over an annual planning process where management and the board are told the lies they wanted to hear. The finance teams have issued reports that often end up in an executive's briefcase, which, on their third return journey back to the office, are deemed as read.

There are now significant performance gaps between what CFOs see as important and their current proficiency in that area. In the 2015 IBM Global C-suite study,1 CFOs were saying that the two most important areas for them were “Identify and track new revenue growth opportunities” and “Develop talent in the finance organization”. However, the biggest skill gap was with the integration of information across the enterprise, as shown in Exhibit 1.1.

EXHIBIT 1.1 The biggest performance gaps in finance teams

Source: IBM Global C-Suite Study 2015 based on approximately 60 °CFO interviews.