Ventana Research Analyst Perspectives

The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line

Posted by Robert Kugel on Apr 17, 2020 5:39:15 PM

The Chief Financial Officer can enable her or his finance department play a more strategic role in company operations by adopting what I call profitability management. In the interest of time I’ve made this a very high-level description that’s intended to be just an introduction to the topic. Profitability management is a cross-functional effort. It integrates finance and sales to achieve an optimal balance of revenue and margin objectives. It’s an analytics-based approach designed achieve higher sales and fatter margins. Why should the CFO drive a profitability management initiative? The main reason is that it will improve the company’s profitability and competitiveness. The bottom line is the bottom line.

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Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Accounting, Integrated Business Planning, CEO, CFO, Financial Performance Management, Foreca

Fortune Favors the Prepared

Posted by Robert Kugel on Apr 7, 2020 5:20:14 PM

I like Louis Pasteur’s observation that “fortune favors the prepared mind.” So-called black swan events happen regularly and can have a very negative effect on a business. Of course, risk is inherent in any commercial undertaking; organizations don’t succeed by being overly cautious and reckless ones usually fail after awhile. Those that are consistently successful are ones that manage risk intelligently. That is, they correctly identify vulnerabilities, avoid the decisions and situations where risks outweigh the benefits, insure the risks that are economically insurable and quickly mitigate the impact of negative events. They are resilient in the face of change because they are adaptable.

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Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Accounting, Integrated Business Planning, CEO, CFO, Financial Performance Management, Foreca

Processes and Software Make Long-Term Planning and Investing More Effective

Posted by Ventana Research on Oct 14, 2016 10:17:00 AM

Effective capital planning and capital investment are vital to a company’s long-term success. The choices a company makes in this regard – how much to invest and in which facilities or projects – almost always have a profound impact on its competitiveness and performance. Because they have limited financial resources, well-managed companies take pains to ensure that these decisions support their long-term strategies and are made as rationally as possible. To do this they must have a disciplined approach to assigning priorities to capital investments within the context of the company’s specific strategy and objectives, as well as the ability to easily identify and eliminate unnecessary projects or excessive spending. And since business environments are dynamic, companies must also continually review their investment portfolios to assess their performance to plan and their strategic value while they also consider new investments to support and expand the existing long-term portfolio.

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Topics: Office of Finance, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CEO, CFO, Financial Performance Management, Foreca

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