MyCIMA

Social media and Business Intelligence – challenge or advantage?

Posted: Wednesday 18 May 2011 by Charles Ravenhill
Replies : 5
Category: Financial reporting, Management accounting, Networking and social
Keywords: business intelligence, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise software, financial reporting, social media
Charles Ravenhill's picture

Social media is a rapidly-expanding technology which is generating a radically different way of doing business.

However, as we have read via Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock”, our inability to keep up with and adapt to rapid changes in technology can leave us all left behind and unable to benefit from it.

•    Is social media a Marmite product which we either love or loathe ?
•    Is this technology only for young people to benefit from?
•    Can we use it to gain a valuable and vital step over our competitors if we can harness it ?
•    Do we value its help or is it simply yet another possible interruption to our working day ?
•    How should we best use these technologies as CIMA Professionals with respect to this ?
•    How can we keep up ?
•    How can we catch up ?

How does this impact and relate to Business Intelligence (BI)?  One aspect of Business Intelligence is the automation of financial reporting.

o    Should we see BI as a threat or an opportunity ?
o    How do we feel about the culture shift where the business users can have the same access to financial data in real time as Finance do ?
o    Can we adapt the Business Partnering relationship, through BI, to add real, tangible competitive advantage to our business ?
o    Does this fundamentally change the role of the management accountant with the adoption of this type of technology ?
o    BI vs Excel – is this competitive or complementary ?
o    Do we change accounting procedures to adapt to changing technologies (such as BI) ?

I would be interested to get your views.

--

Charles Ravenhill will be giving a keynote talk on 'Enterprise 2.0 and business intelligence – business driver or culture clash?' at CIMA's Enterprise web 2.0 event, 12:30-16:30, Monday 13th June, hosted in association with and at Microsoft, London, UK.

To see the full speaker line-up, and to register for the (free) event, visit: http://www.cimaglobal.com/enterpriseweb

Suggested event hashtags: #e20cima #e20

Social Media & BI

Posted by Lee Hawthorn on Saturday 18 June 2011 08:42

For big business the social networks provide a great resource of information that has not been available before.  I heard Coca-Cola regularly mine the twitter fire hose to check what consumers are saying about their products.  From this data set they are able to get a heads-up on performance that beats any internally generated data.

BI is required to transform this unstructured data into structured information that can be analysed.

BI is an opportunity if done in the right way.  I've never known anything as hard as creating a multi-dimensional model but once it's there it's a gold-mine and can lead to competitive advantages if action is connected to the outcomes. 

Does it change the role of the management accountant.  In my case, it has been transformational. The Accounts are now 1 of many tools available.  BI gives us the information/insight to support the business in a way that is more carrot than stick.  BI is an enabler for business partnering.

We escaped from Excel Hell with BI.  Although, with the data in the warehouse, I have seen no better client tool than Excel.  With SharePoint 2010 we took the Excel reports online -only to be asked by some of the users "How can I get the report into PowerPoint/Excel”    

The benefit of BI is that with the data warehouse in the back end you can have many different client tools at the front end according to what your users require.    

 

BI and Excel

Posted by Charles Ravenhill on Friday 17 June 2011 21:56

Hi Lee,

The issue of people wanting to return to Excel or go to something that they can manipulate, I have found is quite common and not necessarily suprising.

At the end of the day, people will do it regardless. In my experience, I have had to tackle this issue in a number of ways whilst accepting why they wish to use Excel.

The root cause for me is several fold. 1. Culture shift - Accountants still see their roles as data providers and quality checkers. Not a bad thing but is usually too time consuming. 2. Transparency feels scary even if it isn't.

There are a number of approaches that can be taken which may help.

1. Finance governance - the "single version of the truth" argument lands well with auditors and senior management. You just need to find a sponsor.

2. The business, in my experience, actually want to have the finance information at their fingertips as much as finance do. By working with these experts and talking in their language, often their traction is very helpful.

3. A good sponsor is vital.

4. The broken record. Every time that an excel spreadsheet is mentioned, keep emphasising the loss of functionality that is lost compared with using the system on line.

5. Keep selling the benefits. e.g: shorter time to close, for finance-post month end the business get off your back earlier etc. Responsibility for decisions/data is the business. Finance become the Police officers to the system etc.

6. Ensure that finance are involved in and are vital to the UAT but are not the only ones to do so as well. 

Hope this helps.

Charles

BI

Posted by Lee Hawthorn on Saturday 18 June 2011 09:16

 Charles,

Thanks for your advice.

The 'single version of the truth' concept deserves a seperate discussion.

Lee

Single Version of the Truth

Posted by Charles Ravenhill on Monday 20 June 2011 09:22

Hi Lee,

You are probably right. One of the most used and least really understood terms, I suspect.

Maybe the subject of a future event !! 

Thanks

Charles

Business Tools

Posted by Md Aslam Khan on Thursday 08 September 2011 07:38
BI or Social Media whatever name they  may be given they are all tools in the hands of the managers.The type of tools  businesses use is a function of  time and the level of complexity that the organisation is into.A Simple start up could also do with as simple paper and pen reporting also, what might be inconcievable for a enterprise with  billions of dollars assets .With time  also the same small firms have been used to the advanced  tools of managing businesses.So the advent and evolution of tools will continue and we will be seeig newer and more sophisticated tools for managing businesses.What needs  to be done is knowing the applications of tools and the tools must remain what they are rather being more important than the business.