Combining best reporting practices with the latest information technology Finance professionals need to constantly search for more efficient ways to increase the scope and effectiveness of the reporting process, while at the same time minimizing operational costs. Performance Management and Reporting Best Practices weds best practices to the ultimate measures-better business decisions and better results-defining clear action plans for successfully developing, implementing, and profiting from the strategic application of key performance metrics. David Axson's reader-friendly guide combines reporting best practices with the most recent developments in information technology, allowing managers to automate and streamline the reporting process to meet their unique needs. Drawing upon real-world examples, he explains how leading-edge companies are redesigning the financial planning process, making it more responsive, adaptive, useful, simple, powerful, and able to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage. David Axson (Akron, OH) is Managing Director of AnswerThink Consulting Group's CEO/Solutions practice area.
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
