Centralised financial services, need of the hour

Mumbai, Nov 28 (UNI) A growing number of finance and information technology organisations recognise the value of centralising cross enterprise financial services, according to a survey by Teradata Corporation.

A key finding is that even the best Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, while delivering important operational and transaction processing value, do not enable the critical analytical flexibility and detailed insight that financial analysts now require.

Seventy-one per cent of 360 respondents to the survey said they struggle to collect data from multiple sources and perform analyses needed to answer unanticipated financial performance questions.

On a related note, nearly 50 percent reported difficulty trying to integrate ERP data with other critical operational and legacy system information. These challenges limit visibility into business dynamics affecting financial results, and delays actions that can improve corporate performance.

Among the survey respondents, the most popular approaches to improving the effectiveness of the finance function includes, ERP application upgrades, cross-enterprise process standardization and the implementation of enterprise data warehouses.

UNI