Performance and Compliance - Combining To Deliver Financial and Operational Insight

A key driver for improving financial consolidations is to enable actionable performance reporting. In this Webinar, we will share how best practices in reporting are critical to world class organizations, enabling better confidence and decision making. Specifically, you’ll see how business intelligence enhances information communication of timely, validated financial results.

The first part of our session, presented by The Hackett Group, will present a contrast between World Class and Peer Group companies and compare best practice usage (automation, integration, standardization), skills / training of the employees in these groups, responsiveness, and the volume of activity associated with each group. You’ll hear how World Class companies have improved access to information for the business groups outside of finance and made them more self-sufficient in terms of reporting.

Then, Cognos will review the impact of Cognos Controller and the Cognos Performance Management platform on sharing and distributing financial and operational insight. The Cognos Performance Management platform brings together Cognos 8 Business Intelligence and Cognos Controller to deliver enterprise information – combining financial results from Cognos Controller as well as financial and operational information from all your disparate systems, enabling finance teams to deliver decision making to each and every business user. The Cognos Controller Performance Blueprint for Management and Financial Reporting will demonstrate how financial results can be shared automatically through world class business intelligence.

About the Webinar Series

It’s five years since Sarbanes Oxley became law, and for many organizations the goal of relevant, accurate, timely, auditable, controlled financial information remains elusive and out of reach.

Surprising? Not when you look closely at the trends that prevent organizations from optimizing their financial consolidations:

• The still-ubiquitous spreadsheet, preventing centralized management and process control.
• First generation solutions, unable to support modern requirements.
• A close process layered on by acquisitions, restructuring, and a host of source systems.

This series is a step-by-step discovery of the benefits of renewing the close, consolidate, report process. We will engage thought leaders, industry experts, and customers throughout. Whether you are already resolving your financial consolidation issues or just embarking on your journey, this Webinar series will bring you valuable information to help you each step of the way.

• Controllers
• CFO's
• CIO's
• VP's, Directors and Managers of Finance, Corporate Governance, Compliance, IT

Mr. Willman is the Program Leader for The Hackett Group's Account-to-Report and Enterprise Performance Management Advisory Programs. He has over 12 years of finance, accounting and consulting experience across numerous industries. His experience has focused on helping CFOs and senior Finance executives to transform their organizations through the deployment of more efficient and effective processes, service delivery models and enabling technologies. Prior to joining The Hackett Group, Mr. Willman worked in Finance Transformation consulting with IBM Global Business Services and PwC Consulting. He also has several years of public accounting experience. He holds an MBA from Duke University, a BBA in Accounting from the University of Georgia and is a Certified Public Accountant in the state of Georgia.

Rickard Rygin is Application Advisor to the Cognos Innovation Centre for Performance Management. Mr. Rygin combines his formal education in business at Stockholm University with many years experience in delivering performance management solutions to customers.  He has held a variety of positions at Cognos including consultant, developer and BI Manager. Mr. Rygin's background includes formal training and experience in finance and accounting. . Working with the CICPM team, Mr. Rygin's current responsibility is to advise and assist customers with their implementation projects as part of their overall performance management strategy for their organization.

Delbert Krause is Director, Product Marketing, Performance Management Solutions at Cognos. Mr. Krause combines his formal education in finance and accounting along with 20 plus years experience in delivering performance management solutions supporting finance, business and IT users. He has worked in a variety of roles enabling customers achieve success across a broad range of solutions supporting performance management, from large international consolidations to enterprise planning and reporting applications. Mr. Krause's background includes formal training and experience in finance, working directly with customers and consulting, selling, and marketing performance management software solutions. Working with the Performance Management Solutions team at Cognos for the past 7 years, Mr. Krause's current responsibility is to help bring understanding to customers on the benefits of performance management and the role Cognos solutions play in delivering success.

Cognos is the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and performance management solutions. We provide world-class enterprise BI, planning and consolidation software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give our customers a complete performance solution. We provide an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization's ERP, packaged applications, and database investments.

We give customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? - and enable them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries. Our solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers.

Additional information about Cognos is available at: http://www.cognos.com/compliance/index.html