Strategic Intelligence for CFOs, Finance Directors, Controllers and Treasurers in Asia  | 
2013, May 22

CFO Lessons: How to Solve the Finance Software Blues

CFO Lessons: How to Solve the Finance Software Blues

by Cesar Bacani, 30 January 2012
topics:
Technology

Here’s a conundrum for the CFO. You give the green light for the company to invest more than US$774,000 on a software suite that is meant to strengthen controls in financial management and procurement, as well as enhance the quality and delivery times of financial reporting.

 
Six months after the system went live, monthly closing, which used to be completed in less than ten days, lengthened to 15 days. The finance team continues to work 12-hour days. And the basic software suite cannot easily generate the kind of customized reports demanded by management and the mother company, not to say the stock market.
 
What do you do?
 
In the case of US$382-million-a-year-in-sales CITIC Telecom International Holdings Limited in Hong Kong, the answer is to keep the faith. “My team needs to learn how to use the system faster,” says Rosanna Lee, President, Finance. “I hope in two months, three months from now, we will see the benefits.”
 
Doubling down on the investment, the company has been persuaded to purchase Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BIEE), an additional solution that promises to enhance the basic reporting capability of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), which CITIC Telecom bought in 2010 for its financial and procurement processes.
 
“Every company has unique requirements for reporting,” argues Tevens Kwong, Head of Application Service at systems integrator Karga Solutions, an Oracle Platinum Partner helping CITIC Telecom implement the software. “All the Tier I ERP solutions can provide only standard reporting to the user.” Neither SAP nor Oracle can “fulfill this part [customized reporting],” he says.
 
And to be fair, says Lee, “security is now better than in the past . . . I think my boss [CFO David Chan] is happy because he can trust that Oracle assures control and security, that these are implemented in the system.” EBS, she says, “will not make mistakes, human error.”
 
Reality check
Still, CITIC Telecom’s experience highlights the challenges finance departments and companies face in transforming financial management and other business processes.
 
Discovering that you need additional tools (and having to stump up more money for them) is only one part of it. Processes seen as not suitable for automation, training and other staff challenges, too high expectations, and, at least initially, heavier workloads are also key elements.
 
Before implementing EBS, CITIC Telecom did not have software for procurement. “All approvals for procurement were paperwork,” Lee recalls. “But financial reporting was automated.” Finance was using financial reporting software developed by a local vendor, a system that Lee says was “pretty good” -- and cheaper than solutions from global companies like Oracle and SAP.
 
The problem: the local vendor's system was weak in controls. “After our internal auditors [assessed] the system, they advised us we needed to enhance the security of the system,” says Lee. “That was the critical point we needed to reconsider.”
 
The vendor could have fixed the flaw, says Lee, but the company saw an opportunity to kill several birds with one stone. Kepro, a sister company of Karga Solutions, had been engaged to study the company’s workflow. To fix the security problem and optimize business processes, Kepro recommended that CITIC implement EBS.
 

Why Oracle? The CITIC group had opted to use Oracle’s ERP system, and so it made sense for CITIC Telecom to build Oracle EBS on top of that stack. The linkage between procurement and financial systems was also a plus. In addition, “we wanted a system that has a large [capacity for] database management,” says Lee.

 

Related articles

Submitted by Pradipta Dutta on 3 May 2013 - 2:04pm

When you invest in a system you need to place your trust on it. It might take some time to work until then you need to figure out the ways to enhance its effectiveness. However, staying secure also matters, staying aware of incidents like world’s largest cyber attack is essential for your safety.

Submitted by Aakash Chatterjee on 29 April 2013 - 1:16pm

Such issues keep emerging to create hassles however, this could be avoided if proper measures are taken to ensure a smooth performance. When it comes to boosting your online venture you should get the most high-end ecommerce solutions.

Submitted by Prabir Banik on 16 April 2013 - 10:38pm

Given the kind of turmoil the market is facing it is hard to take any strong financial decision. A business owner should survey the market and then take notes and confirm the decision.

Submitted by Pradipta Dutta on 25 February 2013 - 2:55pm

Any organization should not think twice before making investment in something that helps them better their performance and productivity. They should always look for cutting edge solutions to be able to increase efficiency, they could also save money if they choose to colocate.

Submitted by Prabir Banik on 25 February 2013 - 1:26pm

Due to the economic uncertainty in the market. Most organizations are feeling reluctant to invest money. But if this ensures efficiency and more productivity then they should make the investment. For data management they have to rely on cloud hosting.

Submitted by Aakash Chatterjee on 25 February 2013 - 12:21pm

To be able to achieve better and more accurate results an organizations needs to invest in the field of technology. But since an organization has to deal with large amount of data so it needs to utilize the right tools like external hard drive to keep the data protected.

Submitted by Prabir Banik on 21 February 2013 - 3:08pm

You need to be able to utilize latest technical tools to get your problems solved. Cloud solution has been beneficial for organizations as it helped them with data storage, data backup and security.

Submitted by Aakash Chatterjee on 20 February 2013 - 6:43pm

The amount CITIC is spending over transformation of their financial management and other business processes is not over the budget at all. Being a company of US$382-million-a-year-in-sales, they can easily afford such transformation considering the transformation will make the financial reporting process fast, effective and modern. There is another concern they should worry about and it is all about their data security. The way hackers target attacks these days is pretty much a worrying issue and they should invest more for the security issue as well.

Submitted by Prabir Banik on 18 February 2013 - 8:10pm

To avoid issues like failed budget CFOs often depends on their corporate communications to select the best software. In CITIC's case they got a little slower since they are facing major transformation in their financial management process which will eventually get much more faster in months to come as the employee will get familiar with the new pattern of the reporting system.

Comment on this article

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <a> <p> <span> <div> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <img> <img /> <map> <area> <hr> <br> <br /> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <table> <tr> <td> <em> <b> <u> <i> <strong> <font> <del> <ins> <sub> <sup> <quote> <blockquote> <pre> <address> <code> <cite> <embed> <object> <strike> <caption>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Use <!--pagebreak--> to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

Verification Code
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
CFO innovation Asia Accounting and Regulation the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Accounting Regulation, IFRS, US GAAP, Tax, investor relations, corporate governance, Corporate Law, Financial Regulators, Internal Audit, Audit, Corporate Law.
CFO innovation Asia, Finance and Banking the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Corporate Finance, trade finance, treasury and risk management, capital expenditure, Banking, mergers and acquisitions
CFO innovation Asia the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Management, Corporate Governance, Human Resource Management, Compensation and Benefits, Mergers and Acquisitions, Professional Development, Corporate Real Estate, Risk Management, Budgeting and Forecasting, Business Process Management, Business Process Reengineering, Outsourcing.
CFO innovation Asia Technology the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Systems, Business Intelligence, EPR, Accounting software, CRM, Cloud Computing, Telecommunications, Business Process Outsourcing, Business Process Management Software.