Archives May 2023

Extraordinary macroeconomic transformations have introduced novel risks to the business landscape. As a response to the situation, finance teams must improve their risk assessment and risk management practices by capitalising on data from all areas of the company and involve data from beyond the business in risk management.

By combining internal and external data sources, your business can effectively reduce blind spots and minimise uncertainties. This enhanced visibility will provide a solid foundation for making informed and strategic decisions. While the integration of external data sources will offer valuable insights into the conditions of partners, suppliers, competitors, customers, and other market dynamics.

Now is the time to refine your risk management process, leveraging the power of data consolidation and the integration of external data sources. By doing so, your business can mitigate blind spots, supercharge decision-making, and position itself to sustainable growth and success in the current business landscape.

Optimising Risk Management Efforts Through the Adoption of a Cloud Data Warehouse

In today’s business landscape, recognising the value of utilising both internal and external data for decision-making is crucial. However, transforming this recognition into a reality can be challenging. Many businesses have data scattered across various systems that lack connectivity, such as ERPs, ecommerce platforms, project management systems, and spreadsheets. Moreover, even when these systems are connected, it is often not specifically for risk management purposes.

To address these challenges, CFOs are taking on the role of technology champions and collaborating with the rest of the C-suite. Among the arsenal of tools at their disposal, a cloud data warehouse is one of them.

A cloud data warehouse serves as a central repository that consolidates data from different areas of the business. It goes beyond internal data by incorporating external data sources, and it can also preserve data from legacy systems, giving businesses the flexibility to retire them when needed. By integrating data from multiple systems, such as financial, operational, and customer data, risk managers gain a comprehensive view of the companies’ risk landscape. This integrated data approach enables better risk identification, assessment, and monitoring.

By adopting a cloud data warehouse, businesses can optimise their risk management efforts and proactively identify, assess, and mitigate risks, which ultimately enhances their ability to navigate the ever-changing business landscape with confidence.

The Role of Cloud Data Warehouse in Mitigating Business Risks

Role #1: Overcoming Cost Challenges from Disconnected Subsidiaries

Disconnected subsidiaries can pose a significant risk to business operations, especially when it comes to managing costs effectively. In many cases, organisations struggle to obtain a comprehensive view of financial performance across subsidiaries, leading to inefficient and manual processes for data aggregation and analysis. This lack of visibility hampers decision-making and planning efforts, while also incurring substantial costs to maintain disparate systems.

However, by leveraging the role of a cloud data warehouse, businesses can mitigate this risk and achieve better cost control. For instance, once there was a manufacturer that faced similar challenges with 15 independently operating subsidiaries. To address the issue, they consolidated their data in Oracle NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, eliminating the need for manual data manipulation in spreadsheets and BI tools.

This consolidation enabled the manufacturer to gain a holistic view of financial and operational performance across subsidiaries, providing valuable insights for planning and decision-making. Moreover, by sunsetting their old infrastructure and relying on the cloud data warehouse, they significantly reduced costs by 66%. The entire team now had access to visualisations of each subsidiary’s financial and operational performance, enabling them to identify cost-saving opportunities and streamline their overall financial management.

Role #2: Improving Sales Performance through Enhanced Channel Visibility

Achieving sales targets is a critical objective for businesses, but inadequate visibility into sales channels can significantly hinder this goal. In one case, an accessories retailer faced challenges in forecasting sales across multiple channels. Their existing business intelligence (BI) tool struggled to aggregate and analyse data from various sources such as multiple Shopify instances, Google Analytics, Google Ads, and more.

To overcome this challenge and mitigate the risk of missed sales targets, the retailer transitioned to Oracle NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, which proved instrumental in improving their channel visibility. With the cloud data warehouse, they gained the capability to effortlessly integrate and analyse data from each of these diverse sources. 

By leveraging a cloud data warehouse solution like Oracle NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, businesses can seamlessly integrate data from multiple sources, apply advanced analytics capabilities, and enhance their forecasting accuracy. The result is improved visibility into sales channels, optimised inventory management, and increased sales performance, ultimately mitigating the risk of falling short of sales targets.

Role #3 Enhancing Customer Satisfaction by Streamlining Inventory Visibility

In today’s fast-paced business environment, the accuracy and timeliness of inventory data are crucial to meet customer demands. However, relying on outdated inventory data poses a significant risk for businesses. One example comes from Oracle NetSuite’s customer, a drinkware wholesaler, that struggled to respond effectively to changes in customer demand due to manual processes. Their team would manually export data from their ERP and ecommerce systems into spreadsheets to track inventory levels, leading to delays and the use of stale data. Recognising the potential impact on customer satisfaction and retention, the wholesaler sought a solution.

By leveraging the power of Oracle NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, the wholesaler overcame the challenges associated with outdated inventory data. The cloud data warehouse enabled the integration of data from the ERP system with Google Analytics, providing a comprehensive view of inventory activity. With the solution’s automated capabilities, the wholesaler now receives daily inventory scorecards and SKU-level forecasts. This empowers the team to anticipate and respond to customer demand more effectively, resulting in improved customer retention, cost reduction, and the ability to seize opportunities in a rapidly changing market.

By replacing manual processes and spreadsheets with a cloud data warehouse like Oracle NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, businesses can blend data from different sources, automate reporting and forecasting, and gain real-time insights into inventory levels.

Final Thoughts

In a highly volatile environment where business success is largely driven by cutting-edge technology, the ability to make the most out of available data makes a huge difference.

Data from disparate sources that are not integrated can be rendered useless. Finding robust analytical solutions to make the most out of your data is critical.

Even more critical is your choice when choosing which cloud solutions provider to work with. While working directly with a solutions provider has its allure, it is worth noting that a solutions partner like PointStar Consulting provides a comprehensive suite of solutions that cater to your business needs. Solutions providers like PointStar Consulting have the technical expertise, regional presence, and a keen understanding of different business pain points to offer organisations a highly customised suite of solutions addressing each business’s needs.

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As the business landscape becomes increasingly complex, cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are no longer a luxury but a necessity for companies looking to stay competitive. 

Today’s cloud ERP systems are advanced software solutions that are designed to integrate and automate essential financial and operational functions within a company. They provide a centralised database that allows for easy access to critical business data, including general ledger (GL), accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and financial reporting.

Modern cloud ERP systems go beyond just financial management. They also provide functionality for inventory management, order management, and supply chain management, as well as procurement, production, distribution, and fulfilment. This allows businesses to manage their operations more effectively and efficiently.

In order to fully leverage the power of cloud ERP systems, companies should have a good understanding of the 12 core cloud ERP features. 

1. Integration 

Integration is a critical component of a cloud ERP system. The primary benefit of cloud ERP is its ability to integrate different solutions in your organisation to provide you with a centralised view of essential financial, operational, and business data in near-real-time. By integrating different data, cloud ERP systems eliminate data silos and provide a single source of truth for the organisation. It will ensure that everyone has access to the same up-to-date information and share the data accurately and efficiently across the company.

2. Automation 

Cloud ERP systems provide companies with the ability to automate repetitive business tasks, such as: payroll, order processing, invoicing, reporting, and more. By automating these tasks, cloud ERP systems can minimise the time spent on manual data entry, reduce errors, and enable employees to focus on more value-added tasks.

Cloud ERP systems also provide the ability to automate complex workflows, which can involve multiple departments and processes. For example, an inventory tracking module could automatically trigger a shipment and invoice when a certain SKU becomes available. This not only reduces the time required to complete the task but also ensures that all departments are working together and sharing the same data.

3. Data Analysis

Cloud ERP systems collect and store vast amounts of data from various functions, such as finance, procurement, inventory, sales, and marketing. This data can be used to generate meaningful insights that can help businesses make better decisions and improve their operations.

According to Brainyard’s Winter 2020 survey, CFOs and business leaders have long recognised the power of data analysis, as it enables them to identify new business opportunities, optimise current operations, reduce costs, detect fraudulent activities, and improve customer satisfaction. With cloud ERP systems, data analysis can be performed in real-time, enabling businesses to stay on top of trends and respond quickly to changing market conditions.

4. Reporting

Reporting is another important role of cloud ERP systems. Cloud ERP systems provide businesses with a wealth of data from various sources, and reporting tools allow businesses to turn that data into actionable insights. Reports generated by the cloud ERP system can help businesses identify problem areas before they become major issues. It can also help businesses optimise their processes and identify opportunities for improvement.

With better reporting capabilities, executives and managers can make more informed decisions based on the data presented in the reports. The ability to quickly generate reports also means that information is more readily available and can be acted upon in a timely manner.

5. Tracking and Visibility

Tracking and visibility are key features of cloud ERP platforms that enable companies to monitor, analyse, and optimise their business operations.

Tracking refers to the ability to monitor and record various aspects of business operations, such as sales orders, purchase orders, inventory levels, production schedules, and delivery timelines. By tracking these metrics in real-time, companies can quickly identify potential issues and take corrective actions to minimise any disruptions to their operations. This also enables companies to make informed decisions based on accurate and up-to-date data, which can ultimately lead to improved efficiency, reduced costs, and increased profitability.

Visibility, on the other hand, refers to the ability to surface and understand business metrics by providing real-time access to data across the organisation. By breaking down information silos and offering reporting and analysis for every aspect of business operations, cloud ERP platforms enable companies to gain a holistic view of their business performance. This allows them to identify trends, patterns, and opportunities for improvement, which can be leveraged to optimise operations and increase revenue.

6. Accounting

Accounting is a critical component of a cloud ERP system that enables organisations to track, store, and analyse financial data. Cloud ERP accounting features typically include capabilities such as accounts payable (AP), accounts receivable (AR), general ledger (GL), budgets, and forecasting. Additionally, many cloud ERP systems may offer more advanced features such as tax management, fixed assets management, revenue recognition, and multi-currency reconciliation.

One of the key benefits of cloud ERP accounting functionality is the ability to decrease the time it takes to reconcile and close monthly financial statements. Month-end closes can be a time-consuming process that involves reconciling various accounts, reviewing transactions, and generating financial statements. Cloud ERP accounting features can help automate and streamline many of these tasks, reducing the time and effort required to complete them.

7. Financial Management

Cloud ERP systems play a significant role in financial management by providing a centralised platform for tracking and managing financial data across a company. As financial management is a critical task for businesses that involves planning, organising, and utilising funds to achieve the company’s objectives, a cloud ERP system can assist finance teams in managing these complex tasks.

8. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to the strategies, processes, and technologies that companies use to manage and analyse customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. Integrated CRM features in a cloud ERP system allow organisations to incorporate customer relationship data into their operations, expanding their business view and enhancing customer service.

9. Sales and Marketing

Cloud ERP systems with integrated CRM features can help organisations improve their sales and marketing efforts by providing better insights, automating processes, and enhancing collaboration between teams. With integrated CRM features, cloud ERP systems can provide real-time insights into sales trends, customer behaviour, and also can provide a more personalised and tailored experience to customers. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as increased sales revenue.

10. Human Resource (HR)

The Human Resources (HR) component of a cloud ERP system is designed to manage all aspects of employee management, from recruitment and hiring to payroll and benefits administration. With an integrated HR module, organisations can streamline their HR processes and reduce manual workloads. Therefore, automating HR processes with a cloud ERP system can save time, and reduce the risk of costly errors. This frees up HR staff to focus on more strategic tasks, and help companies to improve the employee experience.

11. Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Supply Chain Management (SCM) refers to the planning and management of all activities involved in the production and distribution of a product or service. A cloud ERP system with SCM functionality enables businesses to streamline and optimise their supply chain operations by tracking and analysing data related to demand, inventory, manufacturing processes, logistics, and distribution.

12. Manufacturing

Cloud ERP systems have long played an important role in manufacturing, providing businesses with a centralised platform to manage various aspects of their production processes. With cloud ERP, manufacturers can streamline product planning, monitor production, and forecast demand. The system can also assist with sourcing raw materials and managing the assembly process.

Maximising Efficiency and Growth with Oracle NetSuite Cloud ERP’s All-In-One Platform

Oracle NetSuite is a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that brings together multiple business functions in one unified platform. This cloud-based software is designed for enterprises across various industries. It offers real-time insights, streamlined customer service, and reduced supply chain costs through the integration and automation of essential financial and operational functions. These functions include inventory management, order and supply chain management, procurement, production, distribution, and fulfilment.

With Oracle NetSuite cloud ERP, businesses can benefit from a centralised platform that eliminates data silos, reduces manual errors, and enhances overall efficiency. The system allows for greater visibility and control over all aspects of the business, from finance to HR to sales and marketing. This integration helps businesses make better-informed decisions by providing real-time data insights and reports.

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Financial modelling is a superpower. 

A superpower that lets you test your assumptions and hypotheses across dimensions, versions, and time before executing budgets and plans. 

A well-formulated model lets you run unlimited scenarios across any program, department, or business unit according to your fiscal calendar or other business milestones. In other words, dynamic financial models show you the probable results of pulling various levers (e.g., adding headcount, reducing production time, expanding sales territories) to see likely outcomes. 

Not exactly X-ray vision, but close. 

Yet if financial modelling is a superpower, outdated tools and manual processes that limit the number and types of scenarios you can run are kryptonite. 

Let’s look at how to generate flexible and robust financial models powerful enough to drive strategic decisions and help your business surpass the competition in a single bound. 

Manual processes undermine your models. 

Ideally, financial models should be robust and flexible enough to accommodate current circumstances and multiple queries. If your team is bogged down aggregating data from multiple sources and making sure spreadsheets are accurate, modelling takes a back seat to fix errors and broken formulas. 

According to an Adaptive Insights CFO Indicator Report, 71% of finance teams manage data from at least three sources. When data is aggregated manually from multiple sources and managed in spreadsheets, it’s often laborious, error-prone, and inaccurate. 

Financial modelling that works in today’s fast-paced business models should automate these processes and free your time to test your hypotheses. 

Properties of robust models 

Robust models should let you model everything, everywhere—expenses, capital, headcount, revenue, projects, grants, quotas, and territories—across any department, entity, or function. 

Your financial model is an opportunity to check in with stakeholders, gather information about priorities and plans, and create a set of assumptions that improve decision-making throughout your organization.

 Done well, financial models teach you and the people in your organization something: a new way of doing business, in-depth information about the competitive landscape, or the factors that might support or detract from corporate objectives and KPIs. 

Robust and effective financial models should accomplish the following: 

Establish a single source of truth with Financial Modelling

A single source of data truth that is accessible, relevant, and flexible enough to respond to emerging market conditions ensures that there’s a united front and full alignment behind the same objectives. When everyone agrees on the validity and accuracy of the data, there is less bickering over the numbers and more collaboration between business units. 

Build confidence in the numbers 

If everyone is fighting about the validity of data sources, the process will be caught up in arguments instead of strategic decision-making. From extensive cost allocations, multiple budget versions, and various organizational structures, your financial models and analytics should build confidence in the numbers and the models. 

Automate calculations 

Outdated tools and manual processes take too much time to generate insights. By automating planning, budgeting, and forecasting tasks, your team will have more time to run unlimited what-if scenarios and answer multidimensional queries in real-time. 

Enable collaboration 

Everyone in your organization is modelling—whether they know it or not. By making financial data modelling tools broadly available to business units and ensuring that tools are user-friendly, you’ll allow everyone to weigh in—on assumptions about headcount, product releases, and more. After all, true collaboration results in better financial models. 

Modern modelling requires modern tools

Modern businesses require financial modelling and analysis capabilities that enable on-the-fly queries, limitless what-if scenarios, and testing. Proliferating data, outdated tools, and a rapidly changing market make continuing with the same-old, same-old a strategic mistake. 

The solution? 

An intelligent, scalable, and comprehensive cloud-based planning platform that gives you the power you need to support the sophisticated and robust financial planning, modelling, and analytics modern businesses require.

Cloud-based CPM applications for enterprise planning, financial consolidation, management and regulatory reporting, and budgeting and planning analytics are implemented by us to address the challenges faced by clients dealing with unwieldy Excel spreadsheets and the need for autonomous IT operations.

Companies often try to use a single product to support business processes that are very different. Still, it is essential to note that software vendors often promote their solutions as one-size-fits-all. When encountering such claims, it is crucial to consider that there is typically a conceptual alignment with an all-purpose platform. You should be wary of the very high costs that come with these sites. Frequently, this stems from a lack of understanding regarding how modern technologies effectively support various business processes. We have seen companies spend much money on platforms that aren’t very specialised to solve problems that could have been solved with purpose-built apps for a fraction of the cost. So, in today’s business world, finding the right tool for each business need is more important than ever.

There appears to be considerable confusion surrounding the term “analytics.” Executive stakeholders seek to adopt a cost-effective, platform-centric BI strategy that experiences strong user adoption. However, they often become perplexed by the array of products and terminologies that sound similar when presented by salespeople. To alleviate some of this confusion, it is crucial to understand the fundamental differences between Corporate Performance Management (CPM), Business Intelligence (BI), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). These three technologies should coexist harmoniously, each serving their respective roles.

ERP – CPM – BI: the definitions per Gartner

a. According to Gartner, CPM is an umbrella term that describes the methodologies, metrics, processes, and systems used to monitor and manage the business performance of an enterprise. The most commonly used functionalities include financial consolidation, reporting and disclosure, budgeting & planning, and analytics.

b. Gartner defines BI as an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance. Commonly used functionalities include data discovery, visualization, and big data.

c. ERP applications automate and support a range of administrative and operational business processes across multiple industries, including line of business, customer-facing, administrative and asset management aspects of an enterprise.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is not Corporate Planning Management (CPM)

The company supported CPM functionalities concerning data collection and data validation through the utilisation of ERP technology. Similar to many companies in Singapore, certain overseas subsidiaries employed a different ERP brand compared to the platform utilised at the head office.

Consequently, data collection became a daunting task for these overseas subsidiaries. The monthly reporting had to conform to a journal entry format to align with the corporate ERP. Mapping the local chart of accounts to the corporate chart of accounts and translating the functional currency to the corporate functional currency were carried out using Excel. This resulted in a convoluted process that lacked transparency and was highly susceptible to errors. The overseas subsidiaries had to exert substantial effort to deliver the monthly reporting to the corporate centre. Non-financial reporting, such as headcount figures, had to be generated outside the corporate ERP and typically relied on Excel.

Business Intelligence (BI) is not CPM

A company sought to use BI technology to help CPM support financial unification functions. However, the BI tool could not cope with the currency conversion of equity at a historical cost. Consequently, their worldwide operations always had to recalculate the consolidated equity and especially the currency translation reserve in Excel.

In addition, the BI tool didn’t have any features for process control. Its database would always have the most current data set, so the business centre would always aim at a moving target. Since reported times couldn’t be closed appropriately, corporate reports usually show data that is constantly changing because prices are always changing.

Shearwater & Workday Adaptive Planning

As you can garner, it highlights the importance of addressing the corporation’s business processes, each with the right technology. Neither EPR nor BI is meant for integrated Business Planning & Analytics applications. With prominent CPM solution Workday Adaptive Planning and Shearwater’s professional service, you can enjoy best-in-class enterprise planning software that gives you the unique power to plan, execute, and analyse in one system. You can make better strategic decisions more effectively and achieve greater business efficiency, agility and growth.

Shearwater Group announced it was named a winner of the FY23 Solution Provider of the Year Award – Rising Star by Workday. The awards were announced during the Workday Sales Kick-off on February 28, 2023.

The FY23 Solution Provider of the Year Award – Rising Star acknowledges Asia’s top-performing Workday Adaptive Planning Solution Provider, achieving the most tremendous year-on-year increase in joint business with Workday. Additionally, the award recognizes the provider that has secured the largest Workday Adaptive Planning deal in Japan during Q4. Workday Adaptive Planning is a powerful tool that facilitates ongoing enterprise planning for finance, workforce, sales, and operations.

The Shearwater Group is a company that specializes in business transformation in Asia. They have offices in different parts of the region, including Singapore, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. With their expertise, they help other companies optimize their performance by utilizing technology. They have dedicated templates for various industries, such as high-growth technology companies, services, distribution, manufacturing, hospitality, and non-governmental organizations. By using Workday Adaptive Planning, businesses can achieve continuous enterprise planning for finance, workforce, sales, and operations and enjoy its benefits soon after implementation.

With extensive industry experience and a wealth of technical skills, the Shearwater Group also helps companies integrate disparate systems into Workday Adaptive Planning by collecting data from multiple sources and giving one comprehensive picture via Workday Adaptive Planning. 

The Shearwater Group is part of the Workday Adaptive Planning Solution Providers Program that delivers deployment services to a customer base of more than 6000 customers.