CFO.com’s CPM conference: CFOs see FOs

Some notable presentations will be from:

Harvard Business School Professor Robert S. Kaplan – Dr. Kaplan, who conducted the pioneering research on activity-based costing (ABC) and co-defined The Balanced Scorecard with Dr. David Norton, will describe why many companies today are struggling with unprofitable products, services, channels, and customers. He will explain how managerial accounting methods provide visibility to better rationalize the mix of products and customers to better utilize resources to maximize shareholder wealth.

Ed Barrows, Partner, Cambridge Performance Partners – Mr. Barrows will discuss topics from his book Managing Performance in Turbulent Times: Analytics and Insight that he co-authored with Dr. Andy Neely. He will describe CPM systems and tools.

David A.J. Axson, Partner, Accenture – Mr. Axson’s presentation, “Globalizing Performance Management in an Uncertain World,” will reference an Accenture research study related to the increased volatility of an increasingly digital and inter-connected world and how CPM methods help organizations to cope.

CFO trends with business analytics

The conference’s emphasis on tools and technologies is timely. Today there is substantial interest in Big Data and how Business Analytics and Information Management can cut through the treasure trove of raw transactional data to understand what is relevant for insights and decision making. Organizations are drowning in data but starving for information.

I describe this topic in an IIA research brief that I authored for the International Institute of Analytics. Its title is “Trends and Visions of Analytics in the CFO and Accounting Function.” My belief is the finance and accounting function may very well be the function in an organization that drives and accelerates the adoption rate of applying analytics.

Gary Cokins, CPIM
(gary.cokins@sas.com; phone: 919-531-2012)
blogs.sas.com/content/cokins

Gary Cokins (Cornell University BS IE/OR, 1971; Northwestern University Kellogg MBA 1974) is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in advanced cost management and enterprise performance and risk management systems. He is a Principal in business consulting involved with analytics-based enterprise performance management solutions with SAS, a global leader in business intelligence and analytics software. He began his career in industry with a Fortune 100 company in CFO and operations roles. He then worked 15 years in consulting with Deloitte, KPMG, and EDS. His two most recent books are Performance Management: Finding the Missing Pieces to Close the Intelligence Gap (ISBN 0-471-57690-5) and Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics (ISBN 978-0-470-44998-1). Mr. Cokins can be contacted at gary.
cokins@sas.com
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