Companies have made considerable progress in addressing their financial and management needs, but still are a long way from providing the next level of information that can improve performance, according to Ventana Research’s new benchmark research, “Financial Performance for the 21st Century.”  For most corporations, the research finds, the key barriers to improving financial performance management often are hidden from people in the finance function. These include information technology infrastructure complexity, poor alignment and communication of strategy as well as poor utilization of the available information and analytical tools.

The benchmark research addresses how to improve financial performance in the face of these alarming statistics:

• Only 14% of companies actually manage to their strategy, even if they have one that is well-defined and well-communicated.
• Only 25% of respondents understand how their department’s or business unit’s strategic objectives relate to objectives for other departments or business units
• Relatively few get enough actionable leading indicators – metrics that would enable them to avoid managing using only a rear-view mirror. Half have nothing at all to work with.
• Most organizations lack information adequacy and do not have financial information management investments like data warehouses to support efforts.  

Register and View the Webinar Replay.