About the Analyst
Robert Kugel
Rob heads up the CFO and business research focusing on the intersection of information technology with the finance organization and business. The financial performance management (FPM) research agenda includes the application of IT to financial process optimization and collaborative systems; control systems and analytics; and advanced budgeting and planning. Prior to joining Ventana Research he was an equity research analyst at several firms including First Albany Corporation, Morgan Stanley, and Drexel Burnham, and a consultant with McKinsey and Company. Rob was an Institutional Investor All-American Team member and on the Wall Street Journal All-Star list. Rob has experience in aerospace and defense, banking, manufacturing and retail and consumer services. Rob earned his BA in Economics/Finance at Hampshire College, an MBA in Finance/Accounting at Columbia University, and is a CFA charter holder.
One of the most important trends in business over the past 20 years has been the broadening use of information technology to manage and support activities. In the early decades of business computing, companies developed islands of automation for largely numeric functions such as billing, inventory management and accounting. Each ran on a proprietary system and engaged the time of a relative handful of employees. Today, just about everyone works with an IT system for at least some of their...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Performance Management,
Predictive Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Governance,
GRC,
Management,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
compliance,
finance,
Risk,
financial risk management,
IT Risk Management
It’s clear that certain customers generate more profits than others, just as some products offer greater economic returns than others, as I’ve noted before. For this reason, efforts to improve customer profitability are not a new trend. Good managers have always looked for ways to achieve the highest sustainable margins. However, at some point, almost all businesses realize that increasing sustainable profitability can’t be achieved simply through increasing revenue or cutting costs. Those...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Office of Finance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
CRM,
Financial Performance Management,
Profitability
What’s a fast, free and reasonably reliable way of gauging the effectiveness of a finance department’s management? It’s the number of days it takes it to close the books. Companies that take six days or fewer after the end of the period to close their monthly, quarterly or semiannual accounts demonstrate a basic level of effectiveness that those that take longer do not. In my judgment, finance executives should regard a slow close as a negative key performance indicator pointing to...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Office of Finance,
close,
Consolidation,
Controller,
XBRL,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
CFO,
Data,
Document Management,
Financial Performance Management
Risk has always been an integral part of business, but our recent Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) benchmark research shows that companies deal with risk with varying degrees of effectiveness – especially operational risk. A majority of companies lag in their overall GRC maturity, as I covered in a recent blog post. Operational risk management should be of greater interest to executives today because they can have greater control of it than before. The expansion of IT systems to automate...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Performance Management,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
Customer Experience,
Governance,
GRC,
Management,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
compliance,
finance,
Risk,
financial risk management
Our benchmark research on business analytics finds that just 13 percent of companies overall and 11 percent of finance departments use predictive analytics. I think advanced analytics – especially predictive analytics – should play a larger role in managing organizations. Making it easier to create and consume advanced analytics would help organizations broaden their integration in business planning and execution. This was one of the points that SPSS, an IBM subsidiary that provides analytics,...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Performance Management,
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
Marketing,
Modeling,
Sales Forecasting,
Analytics,
IBM,
Uncategorized,
SPSS
Anyone who focuses on the practical uses of information technology, as I do, must consider the data aspects of adopting any new technology to achieve some business purpose. Reliable data must be readily available in the necessary form and format, or that shiny new IT bauble you want to deploy will fall short of expectations. Our research benchmarks cover a range of core business and IT processes, and they regularly demonstrate that data deficiencies are a root cause of issues organizations have...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
GRC,
IBM Business Analytics,
Business Technology Innovation,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
finance
We started Ventana Research a decade ago, with the objective of providing the highest quality in business-focused information technology research available. We were particularly interested in offering fact-based market research that would focus on the practical needs of getting the most value from technology in business and IT functions. Since then many of the observations we make and much of the advice we offer are grounded in our benchmark research. In a field that often blurs the distinction...
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Topics:
Research,
close,
Uncategorized,
benchmark,
S&OP
A main reason why desktop spreadsheets are pervasive in midsize companies (which we define as those with 100 to 1,000 employees) is that these organizations do not have the financial and manpower resources to implement and maintain traditional enterprise business intelligence and performance management systems. To address this gap in the market, several years ago IBM Cognos launched Express, a business intelligence and planning software package designed specifically for midsize companies as...
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Topics:
ERP,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
Budgeting,
Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Dashboards,
IBM,
Uncategorized,
CFO,
finance,
Financial Performance Management
Ventana Research recently completed benchmark research on governance, risk and compliance (GRC), three business activities that are naturally linked. Although managing them requires separate and sometimes very different processes, on the whole these activities affect each other: Effective corporate governance ensures compliances with laws, regulations and company policies, and without governance, there’s no way to control risk. Separately or considered together, managing governance, risk and...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Experience,
Governance,
GRC,
Management,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
compliance,
Risk,
financial risk management
I recently spoke with Oversight Systems, an operational intelligence analytics company that uses predictive analytics and optimization to help companies save money, reduce the risk of loss and fraud, and reinforce corporate governance and compliance efforts. Ventana Research views operational intelligence as an emerging technology with the potential for a high return on investment. By continuously monitoring activities in a company’s IT systems, Oversight’s Web-based software continuously,...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
Fraud,
Governance,
GRC,
Office of Finance,
audit,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Management,
Operational Intelligence,
controls,
Oversight Systems