Personally, I’m an optimist by default. Life’s just a little better that way, looking on the bright side and all. But this is not always a winning strategy. Sometimes it pays to be a pessimist, a realist in business terms, I suppose. Especially of late in the finance area, when there was no use sugar-coating the abysmal truth.

But could this be changing? Could optimism be creeping back in? CFO.com recently asked if cash was peaking, noting that there are hints some of the enormous cash reserves financial execs are keeping under the mattress may be coming out:

“On average, US finance executives in the Duke/CFO survey plan to increase capital spending by 6.6%, dividends by 4.7%, and technology outlays by 4.1% compared with the previous 12 months, although there were wide firm-specific variations in the numbers.”¹

This is encouraging, but not to say it’s all unicorns and rainbows. There are certainly plenty of people who will tell you that this recession is far from over … like most Americans. In fact, according to a new Gallup poll, 82% of those surveyed² said they still believe the US to be in a recession. A year ago, 84% said the same thing²—hardly much of that half-empty glass getting filled. In fact, fewer people today than a year ago believe that we’ll recover in a year.

An important distinction to draw here is business vs. individual. A finance executive making the decision to loosen the purse strings in the office may be the same individual who puts off a new car purchase for another two years. But both are looking for improvements in the overall economy and more stability before really letting loose—as are all of us.

Is your company loosening the purse strings? Or are you still keeping your cash reserves under the mattress until there are sure signs of economic improvement? Share your outlook by leaving a comment to this post.

¹Vincent Ryan,"Is Cash Peaking?," CFO.com, September 30, 2010.

^2"New Gallup Poll Reveals The Extent of Pessimism Towards The Economy", DaveManuel.com, September 26, 2010.

Guest post by Laura Monn Ginsburg, Marketing Program Manager, Infor Field Marketing

“SaaS” and “Cloud” … It seems that these words just appeared in our vocabulary a year or two ago and are now everywhere you look in the IT/software world. But Software as a Service (SaaS) has been around for quite a while, and the flexibility and capability it provides has only improved with time.

Remember the days of spreadsheet mania, where you used Excel to track and manage your company’s expenses, as well as a number of other functions? Those days are finally behind us. With advances in technology over the last decade or more, software companies have developed expense management solutions to efficiently and accurately track your expenses. And we’re now entering the next phase of expense management evolution: SaaS adoption.

But you may not be sure if SaaS is right for you, and I’m sure you have many questions about deploying an expense management solution in the Cloud. To help answer your questions, Infor and Business Finance present the on-demand webcast, From Spreadsheets to SaaS: The Evolution of Expense Management. In this webcast, the expert panel highlights a number of SaaS topics, including:

• Common objections to SaaS adoption, including security concerns, integration challenges, and a lack of customization
  
• Objections to SaaS declining over time
  
• Myths and fears surrounding SaaS (Can I configure around my processes? Yes. Is upgrading painful? No. Are Infor’s on-premise and SaaS versions the same? Yes.)

What kind of companies use SaaS? One of Infor’s high-profile customers also participated in the event and discusses the company’s decision to go with a SaaS expense management solution because of the flexibility a SaaS solution provides.

Bottom line is that SaaS, like any solution, isn’t for everyone. But learning more about how SaaS solutions work should help you decide whether this evolution is right for your business needs.

View the on-demand webinar to learn more about adopting a SaaS expense management solution.

Do you have plans to deploy a SaaS solution? What are your concerns or questions surrounding SaaS and the Cloud?

After a long cold winter, spring is finally here—that means it’s time for spring cleaning. And I find myself searching through the attic and getting rid of stuff that I’ve collected and no longer have a use for. But with the last 18 months of doom and gloom still fresh in my mind, my usual “out with the old” has shifted to “I might need that down the road.”  And as a finance professional, I also realize that business may never again be business as usual.

Welcome to the new economy.

How can you overcome the challenges and succeed in 2010’s “new economy”?

How can you put more focus on visibility into the business and be prepared for change, while removing waste and unnecessary costs from your processes while moving towards Lean operations?

The benefits of implementing Lean are clear. According to Manufacturing Performance Institute (MPI)¹, companies that report themselves to be Lean outpace their competitors and see: 

• 54% average improvement in return on invested capital
• 57% average increase in sales per employee

But MPI also found that many companies have gaps in their Lean implementation, with Lean practices often trapped within the four walls of a plant, with no connection to other business functions such as finance, supply chain, or product development.

Download this eBook and explore Chapter 3, “Building the Bridge.” It details how an integrated performance management solution can "push the right information in front of the right managers and at the right moment” with dramatic results.

¹ 2009/2010 Manufacturers Executive Summary, The MPI Group, 2009

Posted by Andy Birch, Senior Director, Financial Solutions

Share your thoughts.

Social networks are not just for connecting to high school friends and sharing pictures with your family any longer. They have made their way into the business world and are becoming a major venue for professionals to connect with others that share the same interests or use the same products. While personal use is fun and casual, professional use allows network members to tackle issues within the community confines and share their successes as well as solve problems—and it’s one more benefit of being an Infor customer.

Did you know that there are communities created especially for financials, performance management, and expense management users? As a feature of Infor365 (www.infor365.com), the Infor Global Support Portal, these communities provide users a place to chat, ask questions, hold discussions, share ideas, and interact with others using the same product.

The product-specific communities are available to all customers that subscribe to Infor365 (active Infor product maintenance in place). Look for your product group from the “Communities” tab on Infor365 and get connected today!

A compass is a simple gadget, fixed on Earth’s magnetic north pole, which has improved the safety and efficiency of travel through the centuries. But a compass just points in the right direction, travelers still need to have an end destination in mind.

All great blockbusters eventually turn out a sequel to continue the story and capitalize on the momentum of the subject. As a follow-up to 
5 Steps to Becoming a CFO Wizard, Infor sponsored a CFO.com webcast to further explore the changing role of the CFO. We specifically wanted to showcase one of our customers and highlight their perspective on charting a course for the future rather than staying focused solely on reporting financial activities of the past.

What we learned is that it really isn’t magic. It’s a combination of a few special ingredients that create the perfect potion for success. One of the key ingredients is having the right technology in place and knowing how to use it. It’s implementing automated processes so you’re not chasing data; it’s coming to you in a format you can trust so you can focus on analysis and not just the transactions.  

View this on-demand webcast to see how to transform from a bean counter to a business leader by improving visibility, designing the right road map for your company, and empowering your organization.

Infor recently sponsored a white paper from BPM Partners titled, Bean Counter to Business Leader: The Changing Role of the CFO—pretty straight-forward. But what captured people’s attention was the section about becoming a CFO Wizard.

CFOs and aspiring CFOs alike connected with the notion that they are continually asked to don many hats (figuratively speaking—including tall, star-covered pointy ones). In addition to being the trusted advisor, CFOs are often asked to be prophet, sorcerer, governor, and shape shifter. Whether it’s predicting the future, conjuring reports out of thin air, knowing all the rules and regulations, and seamlessly shifting between each role without missing a beat, there’s just something to this notion that good CFOs are really, well—wizards.

Getting to wizard status doesn’t happen by doing the things that finance is expected to do. It happens when you show value beyond current expectations. This probably sounds like you’ll need a magic wand, but it’s not as hard to come by as you might think. You just need the technology to support your initiatives and you need to know how to wield it.
 

We hosted a webinar on this topic and had double the number of registrants than similar webinars. And, when we’ve posted this white paper online—the number of downloads has been very high. That tells us a few things:

We’re hosting a webcast on CFO.com, September 10 at 2PM, to further explore this topic. We’ll have some guest speakers on the call to weigh in on this topic. Please join us and tell us what you think.

Posted by Christina McKeon, Director of Product Marketing, Performance Management

For the last 18 months I’ve been reading about how companies are cutting back due to the economy. Aside from headcount reductions, many of these companies have postponed or cancelled technology purchases, even though the technology may have been designed to bring about process improvements and cost savings. Now that the Fed has said the economy is showing some signs of stabilizing, it’s time to get back on track and ready for the turnaround and recovery.