The Integrated Finance Organisation: Balancing Risk and Performance

• The IBM Global CFO Study 2008
• Study of more than 1,200 cross-industry senior finance executives focussing on strategies for addressing the challenges of delivering a stable, highly effective finance environment. While also providing the agility to respond and react to rapidly changing business climates.
  
  

• The IBM Global CEO Study 2008
• Study of over 1,000 corporate and public sector CEOs providing new and compelling perspectives on strategic issues facing enterprises of all sizes.
  
  

• The IBM Global Human Capital Study 2008
• Study of over 400 HR executives at organisations from 40 countries to find out how the enterprise can participate in addressing workforce challenges.
  

According to recent research, integrated finance organisations outperform their peers in revenue and stock price. Just what, though, is an integrated finance organisation?

The audio podcasts and cutting-edge white papers featured on this site address this question with timely peer insights.

The need for a more integrated finance organisation has grown as enterprises evolve from a multinational group of autonomous satellites to a globally interdependent network of assets and resources. But what does it take to achieve such integration? What are the vital characteristics of a leading-edge finance organisation of the 21st century? In search of the answer, CFO Europe Research Services and IBM held four quarterly roundtables in London in 2008, which brought together IBM experts and senior finance professionals who discussed and debated their views.

Register to download the individual reports by CFO Europe Research Services, based on the quarterly round-tables held in London in 2008.

Executive Summary of the Year

The Quest for Cash

Leading Transformation from the Finance Office

Information to Action

Balancing Risk and Performance

• Finance Strategy: Delivering the Partnering Role
• In order to support the agenda for growth through innovation, Finance needs to partner more, to analyse and predict, not only record and report. To do this requires most CFOs to do some reengineering of their own role, freeing up Finance to devote more energy to the business and growth agenda.

• Orchestrating Risk-Adjusted Performance Management: Identify and Address Risk Events Better and Faster
• By treating risk and performance management as separate disciplines, companies can miss opportunities to limit surprises and capitalise on the upside of risk. CFOs are finding that integrating risk into planning, budgeting, reporting and forecasting can lead to better decisions through risk-adjusted plans and budgets.

• Integrating the Finance Organisation for Global Business: Important Implications for CIOs
• This paper looks at the growing alignment between the financial and technical disciplines. It examines the results of the Global CFO Study 2008 in the context of IT, identifying the critical implications for CIOs, and the need for a strategic partnership with CFOs and more ongoing collaboration between Finance and IT.

• Business of Risk Digest
• Should all risk functions that were traditionally considered local become centralised? Might the aggregation of risk management face opposition if it means the CFO becomes involved in areas outside of their traditional domain? These were the issues discussed at 'The Business of Risk' dinner forum, held at the Pearson Building on 7 November, 2007.

• Risk Management and Compliance in 2008
• After last summer's credit crunch, and in what continues to be a turbulent market, banks, insurers and other financial institutions are going to demand more of their risk and compliance functions. Business units will require dynamic risk management to add greater value and provide real competitive advantage.

• Your Turn
  May 11, 2009
• Even longer hours, stakeholder pressure and hostile colleagues — CFOs trying to save ailing companies don't have an easy ride.

• Those Lucrative Intangibles
  May 01, 2009
• As the volume of intellectual property soars, so do efforts to maximize IP's profit potential.

• Reaching Deeper for Savings
  May 01, 2009
• You may be able to squeeze more out of your IT budget than you realize.

• A Losing Formula
  May 01, 2009
• Volatile financial markets can wreak havoc with your cost-of-capital calculations — and possibly skew your investment decisions and financial results.

• Ready for Anything
  April 01, 2009
• To keep supply chains lean and resilient, companies must keep a weather eye out for any and all disturbances.

• Business Outlook Survey
  April 02, 2009
• Despite a modest uptick in confidence, CFOs are accelerating cuts to jobs and spending. It will be a long and painful recovery.

• The Gauge of Innocence
  April 01, 2009
• Fraud takes many forms. Count on all of them to increase this year.

• What CEOs Want
  March 02, 2009
• You're needed in the corner office.

• Misunderstood
  March 02, 2009
• The relationship between finance and marketing hasn't worked for years — but CFOs can change that.