"Best Practices in Planning and Management Reporting is a must-read for anyone contemplating finance transformation. David Axson provides an insider's view into the successful techniques and transformational strategies of The Hackett Group and their parent company, Answerthink." -Michael Geltzeiler CFO, Reader's Digest
"In this new era of corporate governance, where the need for more and better information is a heightened priority, David Axson's book provides timely insight and instruction for companies looking to leverage technology to enable best practices. When combined with process and organizational changes, companies can achieve significant efficiencies and dramatic improvements in information transparency, business planning, and performance management." -Renee Lorton Senior Vice President and General Manager Financial Management Solutions PeopleSoft, Inc.
"David Axson's insights into the practical application of best practices combined with The Hackett Group's benchmarks provide a valuable guide to implementing effective planning and management reporting processes. Organizational learning and improvement in this area is crucial to manage effectively in today's volatile business world." -Richard B. Kelson Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Alcoa Inc.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Excellant resource; well written:
This is a very practical book that quickly gets to to best practices. I like the case study of how American Express eliminated budgets.
Best Practices to create value:
Author David Axson provides practical best practices for the company interested in solving one its most crucial bottlenecks in creating value. It provides a clear roadmap for the "integration" of strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting. In most companies today these are fragmented or disparate processes that lack synchronization.
This book is an excellent reference guide with clear, concise examples. A real interesting read.
At last a reasonable definition for best practice:
What Axson does is define what a best practice is. How it does not apply only to one company or industry. How anyone can adapt an existing one or, in fact, invent a new one for the benefit of other companies and industries. Plenty of examples what companies do right and wrong and how to find the "low-hanging fruit" of common mistakes and right those mistakes using best practices.
How to shorten cycle time and implement decisions:
According to David Axson, traditional planning and management reporting processes "are simply too slow, too detailed, and too disconnected for today's competitive world. Managers are seeking new decision-making processes and tools that enable them to shorten the cycle time to make and implement a decision." This book offers processes and tools to meet that need, what Axson characterizes as "the current "state of the art" practices, based on the benchmarks and client experiences of The Hackett Group of... more info
