Today the Office of Finance is facing new challenges; requests to CFOs are increasing every day, together with the request of decision-making capability and visibility on operational processes.
In this phase, the selection of the right software, along with a design phase aimed at optimizing processes, can maximize the results in the CPM (Corporate Performance Management) area. One of the best software vendors on the market is undoubtedly CCH® Tagetik Expert Solution from Wolters Kluwer, which has continually improved its position over the past few years. Let’s look at its strengths for the Office of Finance.
CCH® Tagetik: what it does and why it’s important to have CPM Software
The choice of CPM software represents an important step for a company because an inappropriate evaluation can cause serious consequences and repercussions both internally, i.e. on people and therefore on company performance, and externally, i.e., on business performance.
In a CPM software, the following activities can be carried out:
- budgeting;
- planning and forecasting;
- consolidation;
- closing;
- reporting & analytics.
We should remember that the above actions have an impact on medium-long-term strategic plans and visions. Especially in the last period, also due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ability to remain competitive at the market level, gaining shares, is also due to the company’s ability to meet business needs with applicative responses.
In an increasingly challenging environment, at least at an economic level, these applications have become more important, allowing the streamlining of many processes in the Finance Area making companies more “agile”, which means more able to respond properly to the changing markets.
In this context, CPM software, if well implemented, can really give a boost to the performance of a company, and make a difference in many processes.
In our experience we have seen several Planning or Consolidation projects taking increasing time (and costs!) of implementation, without even going live or going live but with a low level of satisfaction for the users. To avoid this kind of outcome as much as possible, here are several factors that can contribute to the successful implementation of CPM processes.
Implementation of CPM processes: success factors
It is practically impossible to analyze in detail every single factor that can determine the success or failure of a process in the field of Corporate Performance Management since it is composed of a large number of elements. However, we can summarize the most important ones in our opinion:
Choosing the right consulting firm
Engaging a consulting firm means being supported by Industry Experts and therefore getting a critical analysis of current business processes, understanding how to transform and evolve them according to the market, and implementing best practices. be careful to choose a partner and not a simple executor.
Not software features, but process requirements
The selection of software should always be driven by the process you want to manage in your organization. However, the attitude is often to adapt the process to the software chosen for the implementation with negative impacts on both day-to-day operations and maintenance costs.
Given the facts, the software solution that is more suitable to obtain a given result given in each business context is clearly CCH® Tagetik CPM software.
CCH® Tagetik expert solution: top 7 capabilities to strengthen the Office of Finance
CCH® Tagetik solution adapts to business processes while minimizing the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and meets the needs of finance users. Here are the 7 strengths of CCH® Tagetik for the Office of Finance:
- CCH® Tagetik, as confirmed by leading analysts, is one of the few market leaders in both Planning and Financial Close that allows you to manage both Actual and Forecasting processes within the same tool, which by their nature has many points of contact and intersection. The possibility of having a single software to manage these two types of processes allows easy comparison of results, ensuring a common data model and therefore a meaningful comparison.
- From a technical point of view the solution is deployable both On-Premise and on Cloud and it is the only software certified to run also on the SAP Hana database, leveraging all the benefits also in terms of performance. For companies that already have, or are about to pass, to the new SAP S4 this feature can be a definite advantage in terms of integration with the ERP.
- The ability to use an open and unencrypted database allows CCH® Tagetik to easily interact with all Business Intelligence systems on the market (MS Power BI, SAC, Qlik, and others) which, as confirmed by our experience in the field, are very often already present and used in of many companies, and therefore safeguarding the investment made in this area.
- Product Capabilities: both in the Financial Close and Planning fields, the CCH® Tagetik suite is outstanding for its many built-in features (i.e. allocation, spreading, double-entry bookkeeping, etc.) that allow you to model complex processes. The use of native functions eliminates the need to develop ad-hoc code (customization vs. programming) and makes the solution maintainable directly by the business, reducing maintenance costs.
- Analytic Information Hub: the addition of an analytical layer allows the flexible management of operational processes where an unlimited number of dimensions and a high granularity of data are used. The native integration with the financial layer allows an automatic reconciliation between operational and financial data.
- Predictive Intelligence: the new engine with Artificial Intelligence integrated into the Analytic Information Hub offers the possibility to automatically interconnect historical series, capture trends, and business drivers, and give the best solution for the future.
- Customer Experience: last, but not least, is the point referring to Customer Experience and Satisfaction. The suite, according to all the major analysts, is positioned in the top position of this ranking.
In conclusion, the CCH® Tagetik Expert Solution from Wolters Kluwer stands out for its ease of use and implementation – a feature that should not be underestimated, especially when it comes to restructuring the Finance department’s processes. However, to achieve the company’s goals, a design phase is also needed to optimize the underlying processes and make them more efficient.
