Blog

In the last blog we looked at ways of monitoring business processes. In this blog we will look at six different ways in which these processes can be viewed. Six ways of viewing business processes Business processes are the mechanism by which an organisation translates inputs – raw materials, knowledge, ideas, etc – into outputsRead more

In the last blog we looked at an organisations’ business processes that should provide the foundation for managing performance. In this blog we will look at a way these can be monitored that we will call the Operating Activity Model (OAM). Monitoring Business Processes Overview The Operating Activity Model (OAM) is central to organisational planningRead more

In the last blog we looked at the basis of all planning and the areas that are under management control. In this blog we will take a closer look at organisational business processes that should provide the foundation of all plans. Focus on Business Processes Rethinking the planning process starts out by undertanding the organisation’sRead more

Planning Challenges Every organisation seeks to improve its business performance, and the way in which they set out to do this is through planning.  However, the Internet has revolutionised the way business is conducted, which has resulted in a world that is both fast moving and unpredictable. And yet senior managers are still expected toRead more

In the last blog, I looked at the capabilities of enterprise applications that were designed to replace spreadsheet systems for planning and reporting.  We saw how four major vendors dominate the market, and the relative high cost and complexity involved in implementation.  In this blog I will look at new entrants who are ‘changing theRead more

In the last blog, we looked at the range of planning needs within a typical organization.  This requires capabilities well beyond what Excel is able to support.  Not because it is a bad product – in fact Excel is probably one of the best business productivity tools ever launched – but because it was neverRead more

In my last blog, I started to outline how planning becomes more complex as an organization grows.  And as that complexity increases, how traditional planning tools such as Excel start to fail.  But for many organizations the move to a more robust enterprise planning product has its own challenges, which we will look at laterRead more

Blog 1:  Moving on from Excel According to surveys, Excel is still the dominant tool used by organizations for planning. There are many reasons why this is the case, ranging from the fact that everyone has a copy and so the software and usage price is ‘free’; it’s easy to use (for the initial setupRead more