| Organizations need to know where
their profits are coming from – which products, which
customers which parts of the organization. As margins decrease
and global price pressure increase it is imperative to know
how resources are being consumed within the organization.
A deeper level of detail and intelligence is required in order
to distinguish which products should be abandoned, which ones
should be supported.
We also regard variance analysis as critical – either
against standard or against a revised forecast. Should no
comparison or analysis against either take place, no corrective
action is possible and no sense of ownership or responsibility
can be cultivated within the organization.
Although crucial to understand the present, with the increasing
pace of change only setting a budget and only comparing
to the annual standard has become ineffective as a performance
measure. This holds especially true for organizations exposed
to global price pressure. What is required is to become
more flexible and more iterative in the approach to the
budgeting and planning cycle. As circumstances change organizations
need a revised forecast against which to compare actual
results. Most organizations are not able to do a revision
due to the amount of time it takes to complete a revised
forecast or lack of supporting technology. As the pace of
change accelerates the requirement for regular updated forecasts
and scenario planning will increase. For this reason we
support the latest thought processes and technologies that
aim at shortening the business planning and forecasting
cycles whilst not compromising any level of detail.
Mindman is a partner of Macs, a leader in Business Performance
Management. Macs focuses on developing and implementing
software that supports business intelligence within organizations,
varying from business scorecarding, various costing processes
to the latest in integrated business planning and forecasting.
For more details about Macs refer to www.macssoft.com |
