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Daisy Duke Needs a Blogger
Today's article brings a few opportunities our way. First, there is an interesting job offer from the folks at CMT concerning a full-time position blogging about the Dukes of Hazzard! Cool stuff. Also, it gives us a chance to show Ms Catherine Bach off. That's always nice.
GM Talks Blogs, Podcasting and RSS
A few hours ago, Shel and I had the pleasure of an 18-minute conversation with Michael Wiley, Director New Media, GM Communications, at General Motors. We interviewed Michael for the 21 February edition of our bi-weekly podcast show For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report.
Serious Podcasting For Business
It's been interesting reading some of the reactions by business bloggers to General Motors' first experiment with podcasting last week. This Technorati list has lots of blog commentaries, mostly positive, although most don't discuss the podcasts from the specific communication point of view.
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| 03.11.05
OLAP, An Alternative Technology Over Spreadsheets
 By Shaun Stoltz
Are Spreadsheets Robbing your Enterprise of Competitive Advantage?
‘90% of "average" companies are not confident that their forecasts and reports are accurate and reliable'
In a recent study, 81% of FD's cited that their highest priority is the accuracy of revenue and earnings forecasts while 63% complained of inadequate budgeting and forecasting systems .
The modern FD is coming under increasing pressure from all sides to produce more robust, meaningful and accurate financial information. This is driven by a variety of factors:
Internet technology is creating new business models that require innovative financial models
The emerging business environment is creating more competition that requires information based on dynamic competitive scenario analysis
The recent accounting scandals and the regulatory response to those require a higher level of data integrity and accuracy.
All stakeholders within the enterprise are requiring more analysis, based on complex models in shorter time periods, with accuracy and the ability to explain anomalies within the data presented paramount to the successful management of the enterprise.
It is interesting then that a survey of 2000 companies on financial best practices by the Hackett Group revealed that two-thirds of "world-class" companies and 90% of "average" companies are not confident that their forecasts and reports are accurate and reliable. Why?
 Consider two major systems from which this data is collected.
1. Multiple ERP systems are used to assemble data for budgeting, forecasting and reporting. The inter-compatibility of these systems can cause inaccuracies.
2. seond, spreadsheets still compose a major part of the budgeting, forecasting and reporting functions of the finance department.
There is a growing body of research showing the problems associated with using spreadsheets within the finance department. That may be well and good, spreadsheets may not be the best system to use within the finance department. However, a satisfactory alternative has not been presented for the use of spreadsheets, and as such the research into the use of spreadsheets is of little practical value to the finance world at large. The question still remains:
"Can other Technologies replace Spreadsheets within the Finance Department?"
Why are Spreadsheets used?
Quite simply, because they can be. Finance professionals with very little knowledge of computer software development, programming or application design are able to develop complex models that can be used to manage the finance function. Also, spreadsheets are widely used and available within the enterprise and the majority of information users have access to and knowledge of how to use spreadsheets.
So, what is the problem with spreadsheets anyway?
A study by Coopers and Lybrand showed that 90% of all spreadsheets with 150 rows had errors. Another study by KPMG showed 92% of spreadsheets dealing with tax issues had significant errors and 75% had accounting errors.
In general, the problems associated with spreadsheets can be split into two main areas:
Design, Development, Flexibility and transparency of internal processes
It is precisely because most Finance people, who are responsible for developing and maintained the models, are NOT trained in the design and development of spreadsheet models that there is an issue. No Financial or IT Director would allow an unqualified and/or inexperienced database administrator to develop and maintain the vast and complex transactional databases that now run Businesses. Yet, when it comes to the design and development of Management Reporting, Budgeting and Planning systems, which are relied upon to manage multinational businesses, this practice is commonplace. The issue here is not that the Finance Department is not financially astute, they are. The issue is that they are not technically trained in the use of Spreadsheets.
Spreadsheets are inherently inflexible to changes in the design of the models they map. This is due to the method spreadsheets use to link data, which is on a cell-by-cell basis. The internal formula structures written into spreadsheet models are not dynamic, so if there is a change to the NATURE of a formula in one sheet, it is not automatically replicated in all the subsequent sheets or workbooks. Every model change, no matter how small, has to be manually replicated in each affected sheet and/or workbook.
Further, it is not possible to follow what methodology is being used to drive the model within a spreadsheet. This is because all the formulas that are used to connect and manipulate the data within the model are hidden. There is a severe lack of transparency of the underlying formulae and therefore the methodology being used to drive the models.
Read the Rest of the Article.
About the Author:
Shaun Stoltz is the Managing Director of Data C Ltd, a Finance Systems Strategy Consultancy. He can be contacted at shaun@data-c.com or ceo@inkorus.com.
www.gemolap.com
www.inkorus.com
www.istrat.co.in
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