On Friday IBM announced its new Finance Transformation Workbench tool to help CFOs identify underperforming finance functions within their company and identify new opportunities to transform and improve the finance function. According to the 2008 IBM Global CFO Study, one-third of CFOs and senior finance executives stated they are ineffective at measuring and monitoring business performance.

The tool was developed by IBM Research in conjunction with IBM Global Business Services and enables CFOs to examine which finance functions and components are underperforming in comparison to industry benchmark measures and the reasons why they are not performing effectively. 

Specifically, the tool can:

      Analyze business performance
      Identify underperforming finance functions and components
      Identify transformation opportunities
      Assess the business value of finance function transformation initiatives
      Visualize linkages to various enterprise models
      Pre-populate finance function benchmark data and process taxonomies
      Leverage Finance Function best practices and methodologies
      Focus on increasing revenues and reducing costs

Learn more here.