FEATURED WHITE PAPERS
Risk Management: Protect and Maximize Stakeholder Value
All companies must take risks to survive, and the most successful companies are those that actively integrate risk management into their decision-making processes. This white paper explains how a risk management program can help identify opportunities for value creation while also protecting against potential threats.
Read this White Paper
CFO At the Center: An OCEG Whitepaper
In this second installment of the Critical Conversations whitepaper series, OCEG describes the conversations a Chief Financial Officer must have with enterprise executives to successfully participate in the development and implementation of an integrated governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) capability that drives Principled Performance1. The first part of the series featured the CIO at the Center and future papers will detail conversations for other key GRC players. For more information about OCEG, go to www.oceg.org.
Management Excellence: Leveraging Technology and Techniques
Extending operational excellence to management excellence is the next strategic imperative for organizations of all sizes, in every market around the world. In difficult economic times, operational excellence is critical.
Organizations cannot afford to have cost-heavy operations, quality issues, or long time-to-market cycles. However, most companies have already implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), human resource management, and other operational systems. Because so many companies have achieved this level of operational excellence, focusing on transactional processes does not offer competitive advantage. The next wave of competitive advantage comes from combining operational excellence with management excellence. This is achieved by transforming management activities into integrated management processes and by connecting management processes to operational processes and systems.
Management Excellence: A Step by Step Strategy
Management processes require flexibility because they deal with uncertainties and can result in a range of outcomes. Using a strategy-to-success framework as your guide, your company can establish the best practice processes that lead to management excellence. This paper outlines a strategy-to-success framework that consists of six interrelated management processes that each results in a key business output. These outputs provide the intelligence and information needed to manage a company for excellence and lead organizations to become smarter, more agile, and better aligned. Companies implementing the framework apply a systematic approach to management activities and increase managerial and operational effectiveness. They gain a better understanding of the impact of business decisions and set themselves up for long-term success.
The Future of Financial Reporting: A Market Perspective
Following on the heels of corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat, Livedoor, and others, global investors are demanding stricter corporate governance and compliance requirements for publicly held companies. Not only are reporting requirements increasing to meet this demand, but accounting standards are changing as well ý the goal being transparency beyond the basic economics to better understand how businesses operate and perform. Finance and accounting executives must understand, adapt to, and manage the costs associated with these changes: and doing so opens an opportunity to leverage this shift to better position their companies in the eyes of the investment community. Read this whitepaper to learn more about the issues, new principles, and technologies underlying these new requirements.
Journal of Management Excellence: Introducing Management
Being smart, agile and aligned are not characteristics of operational excellence, but define what we call management excellence. Management makes the difference, and enterprise performance management (EPM) should be the enabler. Unfortunately, a recent global study from Cranfield School of Management found that organizations are too internally focused and did not use sufficient external information or benchmarking. A better understanding of management processes is needed. That is why we introduced our view on the management process: strategy-to-success.
Enterprise Performance Management: Connecting the Dots
Every organization has management processes and multiple systems to support them, but these systems are often disconnected. Such process disconnects lead to errors, lengthy cycles, and high management costs. This white paper demonstrates how an enterprise performance management (EPM) system connects people and processes, metrics, businesses, and systems. It introduces important criteria for successful design and implementation while also exploring the far-reaching benefits of EPM: improved decision-making and greater competitive advantage.
Enterprise Performance Management - The Global State of the Art
In 2007 Oracle worked with Cranfield School of Management and four other Universities around the world on a global study of enterprise performance management. The study gathered data from 633 companies in Australia, China, Japan, UK and the USA. The results show that 15 years after “The Performance Measurement Manifesto” was published by the Harvard Business Review, companies continue to redesign how they measure their business performance. We would argue that many are struggling to capitalize on the full value of enterprise performance management.
Enterprise Performance Management - How Tomorrow's Leaders Will Get Ahead
Evolve to Thrive: From Operational to Management Excellence, successful companies are connecting disparate management strategies to align performance networks, not just transactional activities. Read how Oracle's Strategy-to-Success framework can guide you on your evolutionary journey to Management Excellence.
Enterprise Performance Management - Management Excellence Metrics Reloaded
In performance management, consistency is king. The simple sounding steps—identify and focus on value drivers, and align the organization to drive results—beg the question: What's the best performance management framework? In this exclusive white paper from Oracle, read how Oracle’s Strategy-to-Success management framework provides that critical framework context.
Journal of Management Excellence - Building Trust
Financial statements and sustainability reporting are about more than just publishing numbers.Exchanging information with stakeholders is the best way to manage the perception and image of a company. Internal alignment ensures that expectations are met and that changing expectations and beliefs are immediately identified. Though reputation is ultimately the responsibility of the board, it can only be managed when all constituents in the organization are aligned. Financial, social, and environmental performance, together form the foundation upon which a company’s reputation is built.
Journal of Management Excellence - Creating Value
The principles underlying TVI are as old as control theory. Accountants audit a company by aligning money, information, and the flow of goods—or core business processes, in more modern terms. It begins to go wrong when information is lacking or when money flows do not align anymore to the core business process. TVI is not the only performance indicator that aims to predict business success. The most well known indicator is economic value added (EVA) which includes a charge against profit for the cost of capital. With this charge, EVA penalizes inappropriate behaviors at least in X3 and X4. But EVA will not tell you if your strategy to create value is “right”. Another indicator—aimed at predicting bankruptcy—is Altman’s Z-score. But again, this indicator does not account for “fairness”. There are many initiatives aimed at measuring and managing intangible value such as social responsibility and morality, but most do not claim to have any predictive value for company success. However, TVI alone is not enough. You could allow suppliers a fair margin, have an appropriate non-primary income, try to not fool your customers . . . and still fail. TVI must be used in addition to other critical performance indicators.
Journal of Management Excellence - Organizing for Management Excellence
Many organizations have achieved dramatic performance improvements by sustaining a focus on strategy implementation. We have captured and codified a body of knowledge from these successful organizations that provides the foundation for an emerging professional function focused on the management of strategy. An Office of Strategy Management that is positioned at the level of other senior corporate staff offices, with responsibility and authority for managing and coordinating all the key strategy management processes, can help organizations realize the benefits from this body of knowledge.
Zen and the Art of the Balanced Scorecard
Today the use of balanced scorecards for performance management has become a hallmark of a well-run company. A recent study by Cranfield University showed that more than 50 percent of large enterprises use some type of a balanced scorecard. The concept is simple. In order for your business to succeed, you need a way to consider the factors that influence the organization’s overall performance.
But simplicity can be elusive. The balanced scorecard is a management concept that has been so thoroughly boiled down to its essence that it no longer provides much application guidance. As a result, many of the best practices of the balanced scorecard are widely misunderstood. As much an art as a science, the balanced scorecard is a living process that must be adaptive to constantly changing external forces and internal course corrections. You learn as you go. This paper contains a few guiding principles that will help you along the way.
Executive Paper: Oracle Crystal Ball
Oracle Crystal Ball: Dramatically Improve the Quality of Your Strategic Business DecisionsIncrease revenue. Decrease costs. Reduce development time. Every day you strive to meet these goals. And each business decision you make either enables you to advance toward them - or impedes your progress.
Spreadsheets and other data analysis tools lack the functionality, capacity, and power to do the necessary “what if” analyses required for successful performance management, business intelligence, and predictive modeling. You need an integrated solution capable of performing complex risk and uncertainty analyses across a broad range of applications.
Oracle Crystal Ball is the leading spreadsheet-based software suite for predictive modeling, forecasting, simulation, and optimization. Used by 85 percent of the Fortune 500 and taught in the top 50 U.S. MBA programs, Oracle Crystal Ball gives you unparalleled insight into the critical factors affecting risk, and calculates the likelihood you will reach your objectives. With Oracle Crystal Ball, you can make the right tactical decisions to move you toward your strategic goals and gain a competitive edge under even the most uncertain market conditions.
