Account-to-Report Maturity Assessment

Account-to-Report Maturity Assessment - A process oriented approach for evaluating the performance of your Finance & Accounting operations

- Ikemefuna Allen

Maturity assessment offers a pragmatic approach to evaluate the performance of an organization because it – unlike performance indicators alone – gives an insight to areas of improvement and helps setting realistic goals by decomposing the maturity into different dimensions and applying a ‘stages of excellence’ approach helping companies to orient and benchmark it’s performance.

Account-to-Report maturity is assessed considering different dimensions of the organization and provides a well-rounded view on whether Finance & Accounting departments “are doing things right” or whether specific areas may need improvement.

The six maturity dimensions are:

1. Process Efficiency

2. Systems standardization and integration

3. Strategic Objectives and KPIs

4. Data quality and availability

5. Process performance and compliance transparency

6. Staff empowerment

Along these six dimensions, data is collected in a maturity survey structured along 10 Account-to-Report processes areas of our Business Flows reference model. The survey results provide a diagnosis of the “as is” situation and more importantly insights on what dimension(s) should be focused on to achieve the desired level of maturity. This is where we apply a “Stages of Excellence” approach which serve to orientate companies by providing a benchmark for performance.

“Stages of Excellence” summarize the main characteristics a company must have at respective maturity levels as a benchmark which allows the organization to compare “where it is now” and “where it wants to be in future” in terms of its performance.

At the highest maturity level, the organization takes a proactive attitude about challenging circumstances impacting the financial health of the company, and has the capabilities to anticipate significant events impacting tax and accounting practices, as well as compliance. Account-to-Report mastery also implies that the finance department is advanced in the way it operates and can focus attention on achieving efficiencies and perfecting financial management processes while minimizing increases in costs and risks.

For further details on the approach, please refer to the full article.

The assessment is captured into a comprehensive report enabling prioritizing measures and initiatives for reaching the next maturity level.

For whom is the maturity assessment useful? When can it be applied?

Our maturity assessment offers a pragmatic approach to evaluate the performance of an organization because it gives an insight to areas of improvement and helps setting realistic goals. It can be used by CFOs to assess and benchmark Finance operations across the enterprise. Moreover, our maturity assessment is useful for Finance Department Heads as it offers insights on specific areas of operations for improvement. Business Transformation Managers and Process Managers also benefit from a maturity assessment as it provides them a toolkit that can be applied prior to, during, and after the business transformation initiative.

For inquiries on the Account-to-Report maturity survey and how to conduct an assessment for your organization please feel free to contact me.

Best regards

Ikemefuna Allen

Business Transformation Governance - or how to keep your governance alive throughout the transformation lifecycle

- Ikemefuna Allen

Business Transformation aims at making fundamental changes in the way an organization operates. One can imagine that initiating the change and the resulting impact on people comes with many challenges. Because Business Transformation is always in a state of evolution, it is very challenging to maintain the procedures and guardrails for managing transformation programs as they expand in complexity over different phases. Therefore, such programs often experience one or more of the following symptoms as they evolve and their magnitude increases:

It goes without saying that the above-mentioned symptoms can have dire consequences on the wellbeing and future of the transformation undertaking. Our experience points to the fact that these issues will not occur when good governance is established and maintained throughout the lifetime of transformation. Good governance helps avoid Business Transformations failing by means of establishing:

• A single source of truth for requirement

• Change Management for constantly evolving requirements

• A link between requirements and test

• Traceability of requirements through the development life cycle

• Clear definition of roles and communication between stakeholders

• Cross-functional ownership

• Performance indicators to measure success of the transformation program

Understanding holistic transformation governance

Let me use the analogy of the big bang and expanding universe to explain our philosophy on holistic transformation governance. In this light, governance establishes the natural laws for effectively managing transformations as they expand over their lifetime. These natural laws consist of the transformation initiative’s meta model or grand design of the relationships between the ‘matter’ and substances, i.e. how stakeholders and project team, and design and implementation interact during the transformation. Holistic governance establishes the rules on how ‘matter’ should interact over time and space, and thus, in context of a complex initiative, how the grand design should be implemented.

For governance to work over time, one must go beyond its initial setup and put in place a framework that allows governance to adapt as the scope changes. This approach ensures that governance remains intact as transformations expand in scope and over time. What follows are the steps we advise should be taken to ensure that governance stays alive as the transformation program evolves:

• Define the product governance as part of the transformation product backlog. This includes

  • the meta model (content to be governed, i.e. business processes, systems, data but also all related documentation and communication results),

  • governance processes (i.e. decisions taking, approval and change request processes),

  • governance roles (i.e. business process owner and product owner) and

  • tools (modelling, DMS, test management, task tracking, etc).

• Incorporate governance-related user stories into sprint planning to address all governance related requirements

• Run sprints and deliver governance related sprint backlog requirements. Here each phase of the transformation program can be broken down into two to four week sprints.

• Sprint review enables assessing the applicability of the governance concept to the evolving transformation program. At this point, it is important to consider whether there are dedicated changes of phases that require an adjustment of the governance (e.g. going from build to deploy would require considering new roles such as trainers and end users).

• Release & deliver governance content to users

• Refine backlog items including user stories pertaining the governance (where needed)

Call for action

Good governance helps avoid Business Transformations failing by means of maintaining the procedures and guardrails that manage programs as they expand in complexity over different phases. In order for governance to work over time, businesses must go beyond implementing governance just once by defining – at an early stage –a program management manual. It is necessary to put in place a framework that facilitates “governance to evolve”, thus remaining intact as transformations expand in scope and execution complexity as they evolve from design to delivery.

At bpExperts we have developed a framework which helps companies expedite the setup of their holistic transformation governance. It consists of a reference architecture for the meta model, reference content for industrial enterprises, governance roles and processes.

 For inquiries on transformation governance and how we can support your organization please feel free to contact me.

Best regards

Ikemefuna Allen

Agenda: BPM Tag - Einfluss von Prozessmanagement auf den Unternehmenserfolg

- Russell Gomersall

Beim diesjährigen BPM Tag am 10. September in Frankfurt unter dem Motto "Einfluss von Prozessmanagement auf den Unternehmenserfolg" freuen wir uns, Ihnen erneut die Gelegenheit zum Erfahrungsaustausch zu bieten. 

Lernen Sie direkt von den Praktikern aus der Industrie, wie Prozessmanagement als Mittel für erfolgreiche Business Transformationsinitiativen eingesetzt wird:

Heraeus: From "Magellan" to "BPM"
DSM: Process performance monitoring in the light of continuous improvement
Merck: Process due diligence
Yaskawa/VIPA: How processes help to become one company
Heraeus: Implementing process oriented risk management in a process averse environment

Experten geben Ihnen Einblicke in Vorgehensweise, Methodik, Tools sowie Erfolgsfaktoren und Erkenntnisse  der Initiativen. Nutzen Sie die Gelegenheit zum offenen Austausch.

Details zur Veranstaltung und die Möglichkeit zur Registrierung finden Sie hier. Die Teilnahme ist kostenlos. Bitte haben Sie Verständnis dafür, dass die Anzahl der Teilnehmer limitiert ist. 

Ich freue mich Sie in Frankfurt begrüßen zu dürfen. 

Agenda: BPM Day- How BPM affects your company´s success

- Russell Gomersall

With this years BPM day on September 10th in Frankfurt with focus on "How BPM affects your company´s success" we are again pleased to offer you the opportunity to share experiences. 

Experienced practitioners from the industry will show how process management is used for successfull business transformation initiatives: 

Heraeus: From "Magellan" to "BPM"
DSM: Process performance monitoring in the light of continuous improvement
Merck: Process due diligence
Yaskawa/ VIPA: How processes help to become one company
Heraeus: Implementing process oriented risk management in a process averse environment

Experts will give insights to their initiatives, the applied approach, methodology, tools, success factors as well as lessons learned. 

Click here for more details on the event and for your registration.  Participation is free of charge, please note that the number of participants is limited.

I´m looking forward to meeting you in Frankfurt!