Category: Finance
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Governance, Risk & Compliance – An introduction by Erwin Boeren
GUEST POST BY ERWIN BOEREN We have all heard the term: Governance, Risk & Compliance or simply GRC. But what exactly is Governance, Risk & Compliance and what are the challenges companies are dealing with? GOVERNANCE RISK & COMPLIANCE Let’s start from the beginning and look at the basic definitions. Governance is the overall approach…
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How to reduce detail in your forecasts
Rolling Forecasts are quite popular today. But to implement them properly it is usually imperative to reduce the detail in the forecasting models. Less detail speeds up the process and helps to increase the accuracy. A recent post on this blog looked at some of the problems with too much detail. The big question though…
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Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
Have you ever been to a giant buffet? Try to remember what it was like. We usually get excited when we see the various options and we ‘cruise the aisles’ to identify what we want. If you are like me, you have a hard time deciding and you end up wandering around taking a little…
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A Few Thoughts About Planning
There is an interesting discussion going on right now. Actually, it’s been going on for a few years. There are some people that argue against planning: “Why plan today? The world is so volatile! Any plan is typically rendered useless within a few weeks or months.” And then there are others who argue that planning…
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Why improving your AQ is critical for personal and organizational success
Do you know your AQ? AQ stands for Analytical Quotient. It is a new measure that provides you with insights about your organization’s ability to leverage business analytics. Most importantly, AQ helps you determine how to best go about improving your capabilities. I would highly recommend taking the self-assessment test on the IBM Website. It…
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Improve your forecasts – 6 things we can learn from weather forecasters
Back in April, I posted an interview with a master forecaster: Franz the Frog. Interestingly enough, this post is one of the most popular entries on this blog. But all jokes and irony aside: Weather forecasters are indeed world champions in forecasting and there are some lessons that we as finance professionals can learn from…
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Is Working Capital Management dead (again)?
WORKING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT Things come and go. One day we love a certain hobby, a few years later we are utterly bored with it. The same thing is true for management practices. What is hot today seems out of fashion tomorrow. A few days ago, I had an interesting discussion with a group of senior…
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Success with Forecasting – A discussion with Pieter Coens
Please meet Pieter Coens. Pieter is the Director of Finance & Control at Landal GreenParks in the Netherlands. He started his career in public accounting and joined Landal over 16 years ago. Pieter has held various positions in finance at Landal. Landal GreenParks is a leader in bungalow-park management and rental. Landal has over 65 parks…
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What is IBM Cognos FSR?
Back in October 2010, IBM acquired a company that Gartner used to call ‘The hottest FPM vendor’. Rightly so. Clarity Systems had developed several cool and extremely popular software products. The most well-known solution is called FSR (Financial Statements Reporting). FSR addresses a high risk area for many companies: It automates the publication of financial…
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The ultimate rolling forecast workshop
Forecasting is a critical topic for many companies these days. No big surprise: the volatility and the speed in the world requires organizations to stay agile. About four years ago, my team and I started working with several customers and thought-leaders (David Axson, Steve Morlidge) to collect best practices for forecasting in these turbulent times.…