Solution Overview

The i-nexus Benefits Tracking solution compliments existing financial systems by simplifying the complex (and frequently manual) task of capturing and aggregating the financial benefits of the many operational improvement activities that impact your cash/profit forecast. The result is not just a more accurate forecast, but also a forecast that is supported by the latest operational plans.

 Key Challenges

• Hidden ‘wasted' effort and overheads. Inefficient and time consuming KPI reporting via emails, spreadsheets and meetings in the operational managers' efforts to keep financial controllers updated with the latest status of their cost reduction plans. This can lead to the obvious impact on forecast quality, but there is also a significant hidden cost in the constant reconciliation between different versions of plans in different formats
• Diminished Accuracy of Financial Forecasts. The financial forecast is frequently out of date as the underlying operational milestones have shifted by the time the financial controller has been updated and provided the KPI reporting with the latest position. The result is that there are more surprises (things not happening when they were forecast to happen) than there needs to be
• Incorrect Forecast Ownership. The ‘ownership' of the forecast (and responsibility for its quality) tends to lie with the finance function who have little, if no influence, over the execution of the operational plans that underpin it
• Lack of Operational Accountability and KPI Management. Senior leaders cannot easily assess if a business unit or the organization as a whole is on target to hit forecasts. There is no easy way for them to drill into the detail underlying the cost forecast as there is no direct relationship between the numbers presented by finance and the latest operational plans. There is also the potential to miss out on opportunities for re-deployment of resources freed up where efficiencies have been delivered, into new cost-saving actions
• Lack of Audit & Validation Capability. Demonstrating compliance to regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley is difficult as there is no mechanism for challenging or validating that inputs are complete and aggregations consistent nor is there an audit trail of how the forecast was prepared.

i-nexus Benefits Tracking StartPoint Solution

The i-nexus performance tracking software provides finance professionals with the following KPI management capabilities:

• Ability to capture and prioritize potential cost reduction opportunities with its comprehensive KPI reportig capabilities.
• Ability to maintain a simple online register of cost reduction actions, which captures only the minimum information needed to forecast the impact i.e. what is being done, by whom, when is it targeted to complete, how much net benefit will it have in a specific cost category and is it on track
• Ability to automatically generate a consolidated benefit forecast which automatically moves the financial impact of a given action in time if the target implementation date moves
• Ability to automatically maintain an audit trail of who has made what changes in the preparation of the consolidated benefit forecast
• Ability to ensure electronic review and validation of cost impact logic by financial controllers and to filter the benefit forecast by this validation.

Solution Benefits

Organizations adopting the i-nexus Benefits Tracking StartPoint solution and performance tracking software are frequently astounded at how easy it is to deploy and use. Whether you are just starting out a major transformation program or wish to use i-nexus as part of your ‘business as usual' on-going support of financial forecasting and KPI reporting, i-nexus can have you capturing and managing your benefits tracking and realization within one month.

Click here to view the Benefits Tracking StartPoint Solution Briefing