Too often software evaluations are restricted to features and functions. It’s like evaluating a car by looking at individual components but without seeing if they all work together to meet your needs. So next time you are tempted to view a demonstration, make sure you’re prepared with questions that will help you to assess the true business value of the solution.
Michael Coveney
Michael Coveney spent 40+ years in the software analytic business with a focus on transforming the planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting processes. He has considerable experience in the design and implementation of Business Analytic systems with major organisations throughout the world. He is a gifted conference speaker and author where his latest book ‘Budgeting, Forecasting and Planning In Uncertain Times’is published by J Wiley. His articles have also appeared on www.fpa-trends.com, that encourages innovation in FP&A departments.
Author's Articles
‘Business Analytics’ is often portrayed as the latest miracle cure for managers wanting to improve corporate performance. But like most IT-based capabilities, the hype is often in the realms of fantasy, which can never be realised. However, analytics is a capability that can bring tremendous value to those organisations who understand how and when it can be applied.
The role of planning is to help manage what can be controlled (i.e. the organisation’s business processes, the resources it applies to those processes, and the volume and quality of work done in those processes) to produce outcomes that will achieve organisational objectives, within an uncontrollable and unknowable external environment.
In this blog we will look at the components of a modern solution and why it matters. At the heart of every Analytic application is a mathematically based business model. This model describes the organisation in terms of its relationships between: