Leading Companies Dissatisfied with Their Financial Analysis Ability

Cartesis, the business performance management BPM- software specialist, along with co-sponsor Microsoft announced the results of a major CFO Research Services performance reporting and analysis study. The survey found that 70 percent of U.S. companies are dissatisfied with their ability to analyze financial information. The study explores the financial reporting and analysis challenges cited by 164 finance executives in a recent survey. Study participants, more than half of whom work for companies with $1 billion or more in annual revenues, were drawn from the readership of CFO magazine. Respondents expressed greatest dissatisfaction with their ability to plan, budget and forecast, to conduct ad hoc analyses, and to support business decisions such as M A restructuring, product pricing and so on. The survey also found a wide gap between adopters of financial solutions and companies that use point solutions, spreadsheets and manual processes. Companies investments in IT infrastructure for financial reporting and regulatory compliance have begun to pay off in recent years, says Sam Knox, director of research, CFO Research Services. But finance executives say their forward-looking, analytical view of the business still falls short of their decision making needs. A combination of resource scarcity - a lack of budget, personnel, time, and management attention - and the complexity of existing systems and processes, prevent them from improving their forward-looking, analytical view and ad hoc analysis capabilities. Source: www.dmreview.coma>