Recent Posts by Jennifer Toomey

“I’d love to have everything touchless and close the books in one day, so that we can use the commodity of our people to do what they were hired to do.”— Lisa Blackwood-Kapral, Chief Accounting Officer, Lyft Lyft shares how the ride-sharing giant is accelerating an automated close using a full suite of cloud ERP and EPM apps to deliver greater transparency and insight, strengthen control and compliance, and enable the move to touchless transactions. The above quote is one of my...

We’re thrilled to announce that Oracle has been positioned as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Enterprise Performance Management Software for Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting 2020 Vendor Assessment (doc #US46953520, November 2020) based on how we align our capabilities and strategies to our customers’ needs. We’re happy to make this report excerpt available to readers with our compliments.  IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide...

Surrounded by uncertainty, business leaders are counting on finance teams to light the path forward. But typical leading indicators are unreliable as the world grapples with widespread illness and restrictive prevention measures. What will happen? Nobody knows for sure. The one thing we do know is that businesses need better tools to quickly plan for multiple outcomes as things change. Scenario planning applications are rising to the occasion, helping financial planning and...

We’re thrilled to announce that Gartner has positioned Oracle in the Leaders quadrant of its 2020 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions. Out of 12 vendors evaluated, Oracle is positioned highest for ability to execute and furthest for completeness of vision. This is the fourth consecutive year that Oracle has been recognized as a Leader. We’re happy to make this report available to readers with our compliments.  Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud...

What’s your biggest tale of woe when it comes to planning and budgeting? I’m sure you have one. It seems that every finance manager does. In my recent article, “7 Things Finance Managers Hate About Spreadsheets,” we shared our findings from conversations with experienced finance leaders—uncovering the many reasons they hate spreadsheets, and the one big reason they won’t give them up. There were three confessions, in particular, that served as prime examples of why finance teams...

Cloud technology is fast becoming mainstream and decision makers are realizing huge benefits from enterprise performance management (EPM) services in the cloud. Many CFOs are now successfully leveraging cloud technology for their EPM processes to digitally transform their finance organizations and generate value for the business. Recently, Oracle surveyed over 400 decision makers to learn more about their experiences with EPM in the cloud, and their plans for 2017-18. Both...

Question: Whoever said spreadsheets were a great way to run a business? Answer: Nobody. Ever. The reason: Spreadsheets are notoriously unreliable. In one of the biggest studies of its kind, an analysis of thousands of spreadsheets from the archive of failed energy giant Enron found that almost one-quarter of them contained errors. And Enron was hardly alone: a 2015 study of 1,200 UK decision makers by FIF9 revealed that nearly 1 in 5 large businesses have suffered direct...

For too long, CIOs have talked about having seat at the executive meeting table, but were often viewed as an expense to be managed and not a true business partner with cool ideas on how to move the company forward. The CIO role has certainly grown more strategic in recent years, with nearly 50% of CIOs reporting directly to CEOs, according to CIO.com's 2017 State of the CIO survey. IT leaders have a role in leveraging technology to drive new revenue streams, lead product...

Every organization has a lot more data than it used to. With all this information, you would think preparing reports on operations and performance would be easier. Think again.  Reporting has actually become more challenging, for 4 main reasons:  Regulations are on the rise across the globe. In the U.S., for instance, bank regulators are currently proposing stricter regulations on large financial institutions to mitigate the risk of cyber-attacks or high-tech system failures....