Management Reporting - Improving Analysis

Garbage in, garbage out. Management reports are only as good as the quality of the underlying data, especially in terms of any analysis.

In this article I've written for the ICAEW IT Faculty, here are some tips to improve the quality of information entered.

Taking your Tablet for Dashboards

Dashboards have become an important way of providing information to senior and junior management. Properly constructed they can focus on what is key to each person to support timely decision-making, by including both results and drivers.

This article written for the IT Faculty of the ICAEW looks at the opportunities to provide dashboards on tablets such as the iPad. Would such an approach better serve your colleagues?

Forecasting and Performance Analysis - Alternative Systems

Forward planning and performance monitoring are both important management functions for any business or organisation.  This is true at any time, but especially when finance is being raised or banking facilities need to be monitored.

Budgeting and forecasting is a regular activity for most organisations, together with variance analysis against actuals.

But all too often these processes are using systems which are difficult to use and maintain. In many organisations they are the most ineffective practices in management. They take everyone too much time.

In this article I've written for the IT Faculty of the ICAEW, here are some tips for how alternative systems can help, and what to look out for.

Performance Management – Will Your Business Fly?

Business performance management usually refers to managing the performance of an existing business. But the first step with a new business is to assess whether it will fly!

Further down the track, market changes may mean performance has dropped and action needs to be taken. How should it continue? Or there’s the opportunity to start a new business. Again will it fly?

Many new businesses quickly come to grief, or fall well short of expectations. Usually this is because [...read more...]

What's Driving Revenue, Costs and Cash Flow?

At the end of each period, you look at your business results and hopefully admire the revenue, the margin and the net profit. You may even look at the balance sheet, especially if your bankers are interested in key ratios.

But maybe there's a problem with a result, and you need to fix it. What’s driving these figures? [...read more...]