Insight - another impetus to business development

Insight is the driving force behind IBM's financial transformation

As a 100-year-old company, IBM has undergone a series of changes with the dual evolution of financial models and business needs. The focus of its work shifted from previous audits, internal controls and financial accounting transfers to focus on business operations and control of business risks And making strategic decisions are also changes for the IBM financial systems and asset management department. In this process, IBM Business Analytics solutions provide a market-based 'insight' that delivers efficiencies, support for self-service and analytics, while effectively reducing financial costs, improving efficiencies, and improving financial transparency Forward-looking data, consolidation of operational decisions, and more have helped enhance IBM's trusted role as business consultant in the industry.

Through the adoption of industry-leading IBM Business Analytics solutions, IBM Financial Systems and Asset Management are gradually optimizing the global unified enterprise-level reimbursement system, intelligent asset management system and service receivables management system to enable financial process and management Transformation and further achieve the 2015 plan breakthrough in four major areas of performance optimization, forecasting and insight, enterprise risk management and business decision-making.

Business Challenges - From Management to Analysis: Corporate Finance is Faced with Transformation

IBM surveys show that the role of the chief financial officer of a company has changed dramatically in the past 10-12 years. After the launch of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the rapid development of global finance and the sudden financial crisis, the CFO's functions have expanded from previous financial management to leadership of overall corporate performance, Driving the financial transformation of enterprises - that is, managing the performance of enterprises' cash flow, solvency and credit risk through efficient financial processes, and using deep insight and supportive strategy formulation to accurately put resources into the growth areas.

However, for transnational corporations, financial transformation is a huge change. They face a similar problem: Reimbursement management systems and processes in the region or department are used in different regions and departments, with different data sources and data structures and isolated from each other. System users require extensive training to move from one system Conversion to another system, cross-system financial analysis is very difficult. IBM also faced the same problem: As early as 1994, the IBM financial system consisted of multiple, disparate systems with 40,000 financial personnel alone, and some data centers and applications have been in use for over 20 years.

Based on IBM's overall strategy and vision for its transformation, IBM's finance division has been continuously seeking transformational and breakthroughs in recent years: first, setting up a global CFO position to focus finance on a complete set of corporate strategy and a policymaker's system , To integrate data applications. Secondly, we should adopt a hybrid financial model that combines the advantages of centralized financial management with the advantages of economies of scale, standards control, and a large number of key skills, ownership ownership and rapid response in diversified financial management models. The most significant change in the financial transformation process is the full integration of leading IBM business analytics solutions and financial processes, shifting the focus of finance staff from management to business analytics, enabling broad data to be replicated under the same standards Mining and insightful analysis.

IBM's Solution - Business Analysis: Promoting Three Core Financial System Optimization

Ms. Liu Lili, Vice President of Finance and Operations, IBM Greater China, said: "In order to effectively meet the demand for transformation, IBM has made significant progress in three global unified core financial systems: Global Reimbursement System, Intelligent Asset Management System and Service Receivables Management System Is being optimized thanks to Cognos that helps companies do financial planning budgets and financial performance management, ClaritySystems for unstructured reporting in different regions and regulatory domains, OpenPages that help companies manage operational risk, and statistics and data mining "With the efficient collaboration of industry-leading IBM business analytics software such as SPSS, we've succeeded in realizing the financial transformation that is moving closer to business analytics for intelligent analytics of financial data."

Global Reimbursement System has a very consistent set of tools and systems that deliver an end-to-end reimbursement system management and reporting system for 400,000 IBM employees worldwide, better cost control through the implementation of globally agreed standards and regulations, and facilitation of financial cross-departmental The use of data. From a technical point of view, IBM historically aggregated internal ledgers through a financial data warehouse and then obtained query data and data reports from multiple data cubes. With Cognos, the business analytics tool, Cognos TM1 consolidates multiple data cubes into one, increasing productivity while simplifying reporting, saving a significant amount of third-party software maintenance costs, standardizing policies and standardizing accounts. Taking travel expenses as an example, two TM1 cubes can now complete the workload of the previous 16 third-party software cubes, basically performing real-time data extraction and computation while reducing data load time by 80%.

As early as the 1980s, IBM Asset Management began to automate some of IBM's internal processes. In the last 10 years, the Asset Department has created "Centers of Excellence" in Ireland, Slovakia, Singapore and Brazil for corporate cash management. With the expansion of the department and the increasing demand for work efficiency, the financial department realizes the real-time cash flow status data acquisition by using the business analysis solution so as to optimize the allocation and prediction of assets. In addition, data management can be more effective audit trail, without changing the original excel application interface, easier to use and cooperate with each other. For business people, the new system reduces manual entry of data, allowing them to focus more on high value-added jobs.

Service Accounts Receivable Management System is used to track all contracts signed by different IBM departments, as well as a summary and statistical analysis of receivables from IBM's Professional Services section in the future, enabling IBM to gain more accurate revenue-generating financials Expectations and reports. Its single, globally consistent interface facilitates full tracking of service receivables information. Business users can get the results of business-related queries in real time through the analytics capabilities of the system. Consolidated, unified data sources give financial officers a consistent financial perspective. Through the use of business analysis software, the finance department can obtain the views of different dimensions such as region, product and industry, analyze the related information of service accounts receivable, automatically generate contract documents and unified data analysis and report view of service contracts, Significantly reduce the cost while significantly increased reliability.

Program Benefits - Insight: Drive intelligence for more industries and businesses

In fact, apart from applying leading business analytics technologies to the business transformation of its own financial systems, IBM Business Analytics software is also helping valuable corporate "insight" in many corporate finance departments in different industries. HNGH and the first multi-brand economy hotel chain in China successfully implemented a comprehensive budget solution based on IBM Cognos. By introducing IBM business analytics tools, its financial department reduced its budget cycle by 60%. The annual strategic planning Reduced working hours by 90%, thus promoting the Group's business innovation and expansion. In addition to the financials, IBM is also leading the way in which business analytics are led to broader industries and markets, helping more and more businesses gain insight and grow their business. These organizations leverage real-time data management tools such as statistical analytics and data mining and upgrade them to high-end business intelligence such as strategic coordination and business decision making, leveraging smart, real-time reporting and high-performance analytics to make the technology leap forward to the industry leader level. Global Rescue Services Allianz Global Rescue (China) Deployed Allianz Global Rescue Business Analytics Intelligence System with Cognos 10 to help enterprise customers make informed decisions with comprehensive queries and dynamic reporting to enhance China's automotive service industry and roadside assistance The overall level of the industry. Jining Steel Group Co., Ltd. through the implementation of Cognos solutions, making the refinement of enterprise management has been effectively improved, more accurate decision-making, reduce costs by 20% or more.

Miao Ke Yan, general manager of business analysis software in Greater China, IBM, said: "Today, more and more enterprises need to translate vast amounts of information into profound insight. 'Insight' fully combines the current needs of many businesses with IBM Software excellence to help them through business analysis to reach their own business, industry trends and changes in the international economic order, such as judgments, the company's long-term strategic decision-making, which effectively drives business growth.According to the 2015 goals set by IBM, is expected to 2015 IBM business analytics revenues will reach $ 16 billion, which means we will provide more and more businesses and organizations with smart and efficient 'insight' to work with them to build the 'smart planet.' "