I start this issue by asking how many advantages do I
get automating the budget of the company? There are many answers, but let’s see some
that have been observed over the years of experience:
• Increased Budget Control and therefore better
financial results to make the right decisions at the right time.
• Increased ability to foresee risks in the
immediate and medium term.
• Ability to assess and anticipate financial
scenarios.
• Increased financial efficiency margins.
• Ability to better align my team. Determine
their functions and focus on the real objectives of the company.
• A strategic vision aligned to financial and
operational objectives of the company is observed.
• Uniqueness of the financial issues of the
company. "We talk about the same."
• Etc…
Now, how do I begin to build the initiative to
automate the budget?
We must look at different aspects and how these
aspects help me in that determination.
Let's see
what I have to do to determine the important aspects of each agent.
• Me: I represent the thrust of the initiative;
I am the owner and beneficiary of the solution. I must explain as from me
benefit each other agents.
• My team: must be convinced of the
direct benefits that brings this initiative and offer you a reorientation of
duties that allow them to have more time to analyze and less time to execute
operational activities.
• Collaborating teams: every month,
those teams help to financials to understand the industry movements, the hard competition
and the general news about I+D. We can say Marketing, Sales, Business / Product,
Risk and Compliance. All are geared to form a united team to make a single
message to the shareholders of the company. Now this gear does not flow by
itself, it requires effort and extra work. How to convince these teams to
support and participate in this initiative? Will they benefit from new package
of information in short time? Will the better understand the financial aspects
of their areas? Etc. Convince them!
• IT Tem: the enormous efforts of
the IT team should be directly benefited with this initiative, perhaps 50-80%
reduction of work to be achieved. They will support you if you offer a work
plan with reduced activities, increased efficiency, more control and less work.
Remember, without their support you can hardly successfully push the proposal.
• Sponsor: the biggest beneficiary of
these initiatives, the sponsor must see in these projects the ability to light the
numbers that were in the shadows. Should be able to make decisions based on
facts to tack or maintain the course of the company. If the sponsor is not able
to achieve this, then reformulates the project.
The
company's financial statements should speak for themselves, actions and turns
must be appreciable finally here. The shareholder must clearly see that investment
is in good hands.
Show
me what you offer.
Asks the
consulting firm to show you what they refer to processes automation, watch it
and judge it with your team. Ask a lot of questions. Try to put your business
culture in this new process and prepares a report with the results to your
potential sponsor. Do not let them convince you without evidence.
Ask for an ideal
team of consultants to achieve the objectives. Evaluate the ability of team to communicate.
This is very important to achieve the expected results of the project.
Test
what they say.
|
Data
Load
|
Process
Visualization
|
Time
|
Activities
|
Reports
|
Me
|
N/A
|
All
|
Decrease 100%
|
Decrease 20%
|
Online
|
My
team
|
Decrease 150%
|
All
|
Decrease 200%
|
Decrease 150%
|
Online and Control
|
Collaboration
Teams
|
Decrease 80%
|
Now On
|
Decrease
50%
|
Decrease 1 day
|
Online and same data
|
IT
Team
|
Decrease 200%
|
No
|
Decrease 120%
|
Decrease 3 days
|
Independence
|
Sponsor
|
N/A
|
All
|
10x faster decisions
|
Less meetings and 10x
faster
|
Online
|
The
Company
|
Decrease 5 days to close
books
|
All
|
Financial Statements
10x faster
|
Business plan 95% accurate
|
Online
|
Calculates and calculates.
Analyzes the ROI of the project, asks for help
to consultants. Determine with sponsor:
• How many bad decisions could have been
avoided last year and translate it into money.
• How many good decisions could increase the
value of bad decisions and translate into money.
• Check Compliances assessment with regulatory indicators
and measure how many goals were breached and its financial impact.
• Analyze the market share of the company and
calculates the impact of the next 36 months assuming you keep in the same trend.
Now, calculate present value.
• Compare the budget with reality and determine
the absolute variance.
• Others.
Take those figures and add it all, result must
be multiply it by the opportunity cost of the company. If the company is in the
Stock Exchange, take previous number and multiply with the beta of the industry
and by two (annual basis) .
This result
is the photo in terms of inefficency of the company in two years without your new proposal. Discuss it!.