THE EXPANDINGROLE OF THE CFOSynchronizing Financial and TechnologyStrategies for Growth

THE EXPANDING ROLE OF THE CEOSynchronizing Financial Management and Technology Strategies to Enable Growth

THE EXPANDING ROLE OF THE CEOSynchronizing Financial Management and Technology Strategies to Enable Growth

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The STraTegic FocuS oF cFos in growing organizaTionScFos in midsize organizations face the same challenges as their counterparts in large enterprises, but also some significant challenges of their own. although they are still expected to maintain tight control over financial management and business performance, they are at the strategic heart of the organization and are more likely to have a large stake in iT investment decisions.

This e-book is based on interviews conducted with senior executives who have extensive experience formulating and executing synchronized financial

management and IT strategies at fast-growing companies. It gives a brief overview of their perspectives on the changes in the CFO role in midsize companies, the challenges they face today, and the strategies they are adopting to ensure their companies remain successful into the future.

Although companies may grow differently depending on industry, geography, or other factors, they often experience many of the same issues, and each of the executives we spoke to emphasized the importance of IT modernization to support continued growth.

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Oracle offers fast-growing companies enterprise-class technologies that are engineered to work together and with your existing infrastructure, that provide the scalability to grow with your business. You can find links to more information about Oracle’s comprehensive offerings for midsize organizations on the final page.

Learn more

Privi Organics to Increase Sales by 125% in Four Years with Integrated ERP System

Modernizing Enterprise Applications with Strategic Deployment Options

ERP for Midsize Companies

ERP Modernization: A Top Priority for Midsize Companies

Oger saves Money with E-Business Suite

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

As CFO, I have a stake in the strategy and success of our product roadmap and our operational restructuring–it’s an overall business role, but with a major in finance.

Paul Bosson CFO, Masternaut

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Although CFOs at midsize organizations still retain their core financial planning and analytical responsibilities, they are increasingly taking on responsibility for a larger number of organizationwide activities. The following three executives provide some perspectives on how the CFO role has changed.

richard Johnson, CFO at Ardent Leisure Group, an Australian company that owns and operates a large portfolio of leisure assets across Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, has seen a fundamental change in his role over the last few years. “Five years ago the CFO role was more focused on pure finance,” Richard says. “But now I’m also responsible for IT, risk management, audit and compliance, as

well as working alongside the CEO on HR and legal activities.”

Richard joined Ardent after holding a number of senior financial roles at Arthur Anderson and International Management Group in Europe, and has seen his role expand in parallel with the company’s growth. To support its continued growth, Ardent has diversified its leisure assets within Australia, and also expanded its operations overseas, with a fast-growing chain of family entertainment centers in the United States.

“In a typical working week five years ago, I would have spent a few hours on IT matters,” Richard says. “Now the time I spend focusing on developing our IT capabilities is more like one and a half to two days a week.”

The changing roLeoF The cFo

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Paul Bosson, CFO at Masternaut, Europe’s leading provider of telematics and fleet management solutions, also has a much broader role than his counterparts in large enterprises. “The focus is on a partnership between the CFO and CEO to manage rapid growth by running the business as a team,” Paul explains “As CFO in addition to responsibility for finance, legal and IT, I have a stake in the strategy and success of our product roadmap and our operations restructuring–it’s an overall business role, but with a major in finance.”

Paul is a highly experienced CFO specializing in helping private equity–backed businesses grow quickly. He was brought into Masternaut by its private equity backers as part of a new management team to drive the

company’s growth. With a unique product that tracks and ranks the performance and fuel consumption of individual drivers in transportation fleets, Masternaut has come to dominate an underpenetrated market, allowing it to grow strongly in tough recessionary conditions.

“To continue to dominate this emerging sector, we need to quickly develop products and solutions that are superior to our competitors’ offerings,” Paul says. “To help us achieve this we’re swapping out legacy platforms to deploy state-of-the-art internal systems across our recently merged businesses. And as CFO, I’m the project sponsor for this huge IT initiative.”

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

CFOs expect their IT investments to support faster, better decision-making processes that will guide the way to the most profitable and low-risk growth opportunities.

Lisa Schagunn Vice President, Terillium

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Lisa Schagunn is vice president of Terillium, an Oracle partner that specializes in deploying and upgrading business applications. Most of Terillium’s clients are growing midsize manufacturing, distribution, and asset-intensive companies with complex requirements, that are seeking rapid, low-cost implementations. Lisa’s primary role at Terillium is to help clients make the best use of Oracle products and to ensure the implementation teams achieve the client’s vision.

“Today, CFOs tend to be more hands-on when it comes to making IT

decisions and deploying IT solutions,” says Lisa. “They want IT investments to enable high-impact strategies that will help conserve cash, increase margins, mitigate risk, improve customer service, and drive down the cost of goods sold or services rendered.”

During her career, Lisa has worked in the back office of a manufacturing facility, implemented enterprise applications on both the client and the partner side, and helped executive teams at dozens of growing companies craft their long-term enterprise applications strategies.

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“Our CFO clients are not interested in looking back,” observes Lisa. “They are only interested in forward-looking tools that provide clear insight into profitability by customer and product. They expect their IT investments to support faster, better decision-making processes that will guide the way to the most profitable and low-risk growth opportunities.”

Learn more

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C-Central: Information for Executives

Mo’men Group Supports Business Growth with Oracle

Oracle E-Business Suite provides Galana Oil with Efficiency

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

The numbers tell the story. With reliable information we can manage our people more effectively.

richard Johnson CFO, Ardent Leisure Group

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In every organization, no matter its size, results hinge on the decisions made every day by managers and executives. When these decisions are based on gut instinct, rather than genuine business insight, the results can be difficult to predict.

Richard Johnson believes the key to driving performance across Ardent’s growing business is the ability to get accurate information in real time. “The numbers tell the story,” he says. “With reliable information we can manage our people more effectively, to ensure we get the most out of them and that we have the right people doing the right jobs. For an organization like ours, with more than 6,000 employees across 110 premises, the quality of our people has a major impact on our financial performance.”

BuSineSS inTeLLigence in The Boardroom

Lisa Schagunn says that ongoing economic uncertainty has changed forever the way executives look at the value of business intelligence (BI). “CFOs at growing companies can’t wait years to see a return on their IT investments,” Lisa says. “Most of our clients now adopt a phased approach when they upgrade or replace their ERP systems. It’s also common to add BI and analytics as part of the initial phase or just a month or two after. The CFO can immediately start assessing the return on their IT investments and actually use those returns to fund subsequent phases of their long-term IT plan.”

Lisa has also observed how improved business analytics and device

The imPorTance oF reaL-Time anaLyTic inSighT

Filix Consulting Deploys Oracle Business Accelerators in Record Time

Oracle Business Accelerators

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interoperability have changed the nature of monthly executive planning meetings. The CFO and his peers often attend these with just a laptop or tablet that provides immediate access to dashboards and key performance indicators (KPIs). When more information is needed they can simply drill down from their personalized view directly to the data behind the KPI instead of committing time and resources to running static reports.

With robust business analytics synchronized to modern ERP, the CFO is likely to adopt an exception-based approach to proactively monitoring performance in real time. “For today’s CFOs, BI is like the gas gauge on their car,” Lisa says. “They are looking for

trends in the data. BI paints these trends in a way that they can more easily be identified and it calls out issues that need to be resolved.”

enTerPriSe-cLaSS BuSineSS anaLyTicS For midSize organizaTionS

Modern enterprise performance management (EPM) and BI solutions take the guesswork out of decision-making. These solutions inform the critical choices that affect performance in midsize companies by providing real-time analytics of all relevant data, and actionable insight for decision-makers throughout the organization.

Oracle provides the most complete and integrated solutions that let

Focus on: Oracle Business Accelerators

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

Oracle Business Accelerators are powerful, cloud-based

rapid implementation tools developed and maintained

by Oracle to get you up and running on a wide range of

Oracle Applications, quickly and reliably.

• Incorporate leading industry practices/analytics

• Enable rapid software adoption

• Provide optimized world-class business processes

and dashboards

• Enable flexible, reliable configuration in the cloud

• Are available through Oracle’s approved partner

channel and Oracle Consulting

• Dramatically improve the time to benefit

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customers gain insight into every aspect of their business, plan ahead, and act with confidence-anytime, anywhere, on any device. Oracle Business Analytics solutions help organizations of all sizes thrive by enabling them to discover new ways to strategize, plan, optimize business operations, and capture new market opportunities.

• Boost business agility with real-time insight into emerging threats and opportunities

• integrate and align information from across all business functions

• empower end users with powerful tools and an intuitive, easy-to-use interface

• reduce reliance on IT with fast, simple, user-generated reporting capabilities

Learn more

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AMI Partners: Gain Better Business Insight and Agility While Lowering Costs – with Enterprise Performance Management Systems

Hologic Expands Oracle Strategic Partnership Using OBIEE

Oracle Business Accelerators

Filix Consulting Deploys Oracle Business Accelerators in Record Time

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The executives we spoke to have been challenged with finding simple, cost-effective ways to deploy enterprise-class technologies to help them focus on developing growth strategies, minimizing risk, and reducing costs.

STraTegize and PLan For ProFiTaBLe growTh

Rapidly growing companies need to implement strategies that enable continued profitable growth, and CFOs are increasingly at the heart of planning and executing these strategies. Many CFOs are taking a lead in deploying modern BI, EPM, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools to ensure smarter resource allocation and support more-informed decision-making.

In fact, for fast-growing midsize

companies, managing multiple IT implementations and upgrades can be a major challenge in its own right. Richard Johnson explains: “One of our biggest challenges is managing numerous IT projects at any one time. We need to effectively prioritize and manage resources, as well as find and retain the right talent to see these projects through to completion.”

Talent management is a key focus for companies that, like Ardent, have large labor overheads. Implementing modern human capital management (HCM) systems is helping Ardent manage its people more effectively. “One of the things we liked about Oracle is that it acquires what it sees as best-in-class solutions to complement its own product development,” says Richard.

why inveST in Tier 1 aPPLicaTionS?

introducing:

Oracle’s next-generation ERP applications for midsize

organizations offer tier 1 ERP solutions at a low total cost

of ownership. And with Oracle’s integrated, modular ERP

solutions, you can deploy only what you need, when you

need it. You can select the functionality you need today

and add capabilities as your organization grows.

• Streamline operations with a single, unified environment for all organizational data

• attract and retain the best talent with integrated human capital management solutions

• improve efficiency throughout extended value chains across business units and geographies

• Scale effortlessly to ensure your IT capabilities grow with your business

Tier 1 ERP from Oracle

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

Many of our clients... want to leverage the uncertain economy to aggressively take the next leap, and bound over competitors, sustaining their growth momentum while remaining profitable.

Lisa Schagunn Vice President, Terillium

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“We’d actually already selected Taleo to provide e-recruitment capabilities before Oracle acquired the company. With the new solution in place we can now recruit large numbers of seasonal workers in five or six automated steps instead of the 19 manual steps we used to have to go through–that’s a huge saving in time and costs.”

But to support profitable growth, midsize companies need enterprise-class solutions at an affordable price. With the range of on-premise and cloud-based deployment options available today, many midsize organizations are seizing the opportunity to modernize ERP systems, implement world-class business processes, and optimize resources across all key business functions, from human resources to supply chain management.

Terillium’s clients are looking for ways

to turn volatile economic conditions into opportunity. “Some companies are just trying to survive right now,” says Lisa Schagunn. “But many of our clients have high ambitions for growth. They want to leverage the uncertain economy to aggressively take the next leap, and bound over competitors, sustaining their growth momentum while remaining profitable.”

Many of Terillium’s clients are growing by acquiring companies that offer products and services that are complementary to their existing operations. But acquisitions often place pressure on existing IT systems that don’t have the capability to support multiple companies or diverse business processes.

“The need to consolidate acquisitions to a single IT platform often drives the decision to upgrade or replace existing systems,” Lisa says. “It’s also an ideal

Grow Your Business with Oracle Accelerate

Oracle Accelerate Overview: Enterprise-Class Software for Midsize Companies

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time to assess the company’s overall IT strategy. Do they want to keep IT solutions on premise as a capital investment or move them to the cloud as an operating expense? Do they want to maintain their IT solutions with internal staff or outsource those functions and build a team of business analysts supporting their end users’ needs?”

Lisa most often sees those questions treated as fiscal decisions to be made based on end user needs and the company’s capital investment strategy. Young companies and startups conserving capital are more likely to choose cloud deployment models. Companies with highly mobile or dispersed workforces in which CRM and HCM are mission-critical also favor cloud-based solutions to allow the easy access to customer and employee information. In contrast, companies with considerable investment in existing

IT resources are more likely to keep applications and hardware on premise when updating IT. In most cases, Terillium’s clients ultimately choose a blended deployment model tailored to their unique needs with some level of support from Terillium’s Managed Services to supplement their internal IT staff.

manage riSk From STraTegy To execuTion

After a number of high-profile lapses of corporate responsibility, organizations of all sizes are expected to meet increasingly stringent governance, risk, and compliance mandates regarding financial reporting, operational controls, and risk management.

In midsize organizations, CFOs are being asked to find ways to meet growing regulatory demands, better manage risk, and ensure corporate

introducing:

Oracle Accelerate solutions combine Oracle Applications,

Oracle Business Accelerators, and the expertise of Oracle

partners to help growing businesses reap the benefits of

an integrated enterprise applications strategy, enabling

midsize organizations to

• Meet challenges more effectively by implementing

industry best practices

• Scale easily to meet current and future needs

• Deliver fast ROI

• Ease budget concerns with flexible financing and

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• Protect investments with Oracle’s Lifetime

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Oracle Accelerate

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

There’s a strong emphasis on reducing costs and improving efficiency in many midsize companies, and modernizing IT systems is one way to achieve this.

Paul Bosson CFO, Masternaut

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accountability and integrity—all while controlling costs and improving overall business performance. And as companies grow, process and system complexity increases, and wider communities of stakeholders expect transparency and accountability across the organization, from the board room to the front line.

Lisa Schagunn has seen how the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 has had a direct impact on the IT requirements of Terillium’s US clients. “CFOs at all companies with ambitions for growth know they have to hold themselves to those rigid standards of financial accuracy and completeness,” says Lisa. “They need to remain eligible for all long-term capital funding options that may include venture capital infusions,

public stock offerings, or debt offerings. Modern ERP and BI systems make it easier to gain access to timely, actionable information out of the system, rather than building and maintaining hundreds of reports.”

modernize SySTemS and ProceSSeS To reduce coSTS

Rapid growth brings rapid changes, which means CFOs at midsize companies must have confidence that systems are in place to adapt to market fluctuations, integrate new acquisitions, and respond quickly to new opportunities. To achieve these goals, many CFOs are modernizing and upgrading systems to provide the powerful, enterprise-class tools they need at a price that’s right for their organization.

Grow Your Business with Oracle Accelerate

Oracle Accelerate Overview: Enterprise-Class Software for Midsize Companies

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Learn more

Cell Signaling Technology Inc. Supports Growth and Optimizes Customer Service with Integrated Enterprise Resource Planning System

Power Design Incorporated Deploys Integrated Application Suite, Improves Visibility into Growing Business

Nucleus Research, The Evolving Business Case for Tier 1 ERP In Midsize Companies

Oracle Customer: Back in the USA—United Streetcar Gets Domestic Manufacturing Back on Track With Oracle ERP Solution

At Masternaut, Paul Bosson has been focused on standardizing systems across three merged companies with a view to integrating further acquisitions quickly and efficiently. “There’s a strong emphasis on reducing costs and improving efficiency in many midsize companies, and modernizing IT systems is one way to achieve this,” Paul says. “We’re deploying cutting-edge systems across the group to ensure complete integration for future acquisitions. We aim to have newly acquired companies fully integrated with our Oracle back-office systems within 100 days of acquisition.”

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

With information on employee performance at our fingertips…we can measure performance accurately and also clearly see which actions will have the greatest impact on performance.

richard Johnson CFO, Ardent Leisure Group

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All the executives we spoke to agreed that standardizing on a single, high-performance platform is critical to supporting growth. They also highlighted the importance of automating manual processes to reduce costs and the risk of human error. Each of the interviewees had a number of specific success factors in mind for the IT upgrade and modernization programs they are undertaking.

At Ardent, Richard Johnson wants to provide instant access to real-time information to individual divisions, departments, managers, and employees. “With information on employee performance at our fingertips, which can be related to a particular manager or division, it’s easier to manage teams in diverse business units,” he says. “We can measure performance accurately and also clearly see which actions will have the greatest impact on performance.”

Lisa Schagunn knows that she has done her job well when three things occur. First, the implementation team has delivered

the project on time, on budget, and to the defined scope. Second, they’ve succeeded in deploying a bite-size, manageable IT solution with high, definable ROI. Third, the client has the training and tools to be self-sufficient without Terillium consultants onsite full time.

“Our client CFOs are happy if a project delivers a tangible result,” says Lisa. “For a manufacturer or distributor, that might be improving forecast accuracy, which increases cash by reducing inventory that has just been sitting in a warehouse due to a bad decision made in the past. We also employ tools like Oracle User Productivity Kit to capture the choices made during the implementation. This provides an excellent asset to train end users and document how their business processes were defined.”

At Masternaut, the cost savings of automation are an essential part of its business model. “I want to see when human beings touch (the Oracle solutions),

FacTorS For SucceSS

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and why,” says Paul Bosson. “Our legacy systems required a high level of human input, and we plan to push all that activity into the Oracle system to minimize the need for interactions, and reduce the management overhead.”

ICEC Limited S.à.r.l. Improves Trading Transaction Visibility and Decreases Financial Reporting Time with Centralized Enterprise Resource Planning System

Pak-Arab Pipeline Co. Ltd Reduces Month-End Closure Time by 25%, Improves Governance, and Completes Successful Implementation in 70 Days

Guerra S.A. Implementos Rodoviários Modernizes Management and Reduces Costs with ERP Solution

V.ABC Paints Manufacturing Cuts Deployment Time by 50%, Achieves Accurate Cost Management

Sennheiser Finds Savings with Oracle’s JD Edwards

Leupold & Stevens Re-engineers Business Processes with Oracle

AMI Partners: Oracle Business Accelerators: Helping Midsized Businesses Grow Faster

Learn more

PN International Increases Annual Revenue by 25% with Centralized Enterprise Resource Planning

Sandhar Technologies Cuts Reporting Time from Months to Minutes, Streamlines Assembly

Doosan Engineering & Construction Reduces Resources Required for Financial Closing by 40%

Action Construction Equipment Increases Sales by 30%. Closes Monthly Report in Three Hours

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

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Whether your organization is diversifying its offerings like Ardent Leisure Group, or looking to dominate an entirely new market sector like Masternaut, Oracle offers a comprehensive suite of solutions that give you the ability to compete, at a price to suit your needs.

Modernizing and standardizing on enterprise-class applications covering end-to-end business processes provides the performance, efficiency, and scalability to support rapid growth. More than 280,000 midsize companies run on Oracle to help them

• Make the most of their people with Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management

• Simplify compliance and mitigate risk with Oracle Fusion Governance, Risk, and Compliance

• Gain confidence in their numbers with Oracle Financial Management and business intelligence solutions

• Boost profitability with Oracle’s supply chain and project portfolio management solutions

• Plan for future growth with Oracle’s planning and forecasting applications

why oracLe?

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Learn more

Senco Achieves a Highly Integrated Platform with Oracle

Nucleus Research, Anatomy Of A Decision: SAP Versus Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

AMI Partners: Oracle Business Accelerators: Helping Midsized

Businesses Grow Faster

Stretch IT Dollars and Hone Competitive Advantage with Oracle Financing

uniTed STreeTcar’S inTegraTed PLaTForm wiTh Jd edwardS

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

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reSourceS

Oracle Products and Services for Midsize Companies

Oracle Accelerate

Oracle Business Accelerators

Oracle Accelerate Media Channel

Oracle Accelerate Resource Library

STay connecTed

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oracLe FeaTured ParTnerS

inoapps (masternaut) aberdeen, Scotland, uk, inoapps.co.uk

Inoapps, a Platinum level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) and is now one of the top-performing partners in the UK. Inoapps has won numerous awards, including Oracle’s General Business Applications Partner of the Year for the EMEA region.

meac group (ardent Leisure) ringwood, victoria, australia meacgroup.com

MEAC Group, a Gold level member of Oracle Partner Network (OPN), provides a range of consulting services and business systems encompassing enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM) and enterprise project & portfolio management (EPPM) systems. With more than 15 years experience in implementing business systems in various industries, MEAC helps its clients identify, purchase, and implement the right business systems to optimize business processes.

Terillium cincinnati ohio, terillium.com

Terillium, a Platinum level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), specializing in implementing and reselling Oracle business applications for more than 17 years. Terillium provides award winning implementation services including project management, application consulting, systems integration, application development, and database/infrastructure support.

Strategic Focus Changing Role Analytic Insight Invest for Growth Success

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Accelerate and Complete Your HR TransformationMarch 2012Author: Oracle Marketing

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January 2013Author: Oracle Marketing