Today's business climate requires companies to be dexterous and leverage information to optimize business performance. However, structural complexity inhibits optimal business execution and analytics capabilities for many.
During the economic crisis, these conditions were exacerbated. CFOs and their Finance organizations experienced heightened demand from across the enterprise as companies scrambled to cope. Yet, IBM's 2010 Global Chief Financial Officer Study suggests that Finance's effectiveness lags.
The IBM 2010 CFO Study also identified a group of outperforming Finance organizations, which we call Value Integrators. Value Integrators demonstrate the highest effectiveness across the entire CFO agenda. In particular, they excel at two capabilities: 1) Finance efficiency brought about by process and data consistency, which helps unlock the power of analytics and 2) business insight to drive enterprise performance.
But how does a Finance organization become a Value Integrator? How does it make the transformation required to become the fact-based voice of reason and insight for the enterprise? Additional research on 15 high-performing enterprises from the CFO study suggests some answers:
- Different catalysts, common objectives - Each company had a specific reason to invest in transformation that related to one of four categories: crisis/survival, growth/globalization, entity restructure or new leadership. At the same time, they all shared common objectives for change, demonstrating a balance between operational and strategic goals.
- A playbook for Finance transformation - The study participants' consistency in approach - and success - suggests their experiences can serve as a playbook for others to follow. The enterprises consistently applied five transformation enablers that span the areas of technology, process, operating model, data and analytics, with technology the most common starting point.
Launch an interactive version of the Playbook
(Flash presentation)
- Success equals people and culture - The journey itself changed the fabric and culture of the workforce to sustain the transformation over time. In both the planning and implementation phases of the transformation, some unique "people and culture" factors played a vital role in driving success.
Download the complete IBM Institute for Business Value study (2MB)
The New Value Integrator
CFO self-assessment tool
Journey to a value integrator
Meet the experts
Bill Fuessler
Global Leader, Financial Management Service Line, Solution Representative - Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services
Carl Nordman
Associate Partner, Financial Management, IBM Global Business Services