[via CFO.com] Managing the finance infrastructure of a large global company is a messy, convoluted business. Regulations and proesses vary from country to country. Redundancy and inefficiency plague the global treasury and finance departments of multinationals. Now IBM has a cure:
Enter IBM, with software that attempts to normalize and standardize
the complex process of developing consistent business practices across
a finance organization and provide relevant benchmarks. The Finance
Transformation Workbench, as it's known, is an assessment tool based on
IBM's view of best practices.The tool, which is meant to be used in conjunction with IBM
consulting services (and which can cut the cost of an engagement by up
to one-third), starts with a high-level view of all of the department's
activities, such as budgeting, reporting, and closing. It then breaks
down each one into tasks that can be benchmarked against best
practices. Then the hard work begins: improving things. Braunstein
warns that some changes can take years to effect. But, he says, "as a
CFO, knowing that I had put in best practices…would help me sleep
better."
Tightening credit increases the pressure on global finance departments to hone processes and increase transparency.
