Financial data quality ensures stakeholder buy-in
According to Michael van der Merwe, Manager – BI & Enabling Technologies at Oracle, further benefits of managing financial data quality are the speed and agility of information retrieval, leading to rapid implementation of corrective actions when required. It also plays a key role in improved visibility through dashboards, providing a big-picture overview of the financial situation of the company at any point in time and the ability to drill down to the general ledger.
Quality data also means that Sarbanes Oxley regulations are more easily supported and assessment requirements more easily achieved. Probably the most important benefit of sound financial data quality management is that the origin of a specific value can be found and confirmed with little effort.
Van der Merwe supports Oracle’s Hyperion FDQM (Financial Data Quality Management) application for empowering clients to achieve data visibility, integrity and verification in their financial reports.
“The return on investment with a system like this is more productive time and increased ownership for the end user,” he says. “Probably the biggest benefit of sound financial data quality management is the increase in confidence levels, while lowering the cost of compliance through the elimination of data collection and validation errors.”
For enterprise leaders, however, simply being sure they have the correct data, even with the high levels of confidence an FDQM system can provide, is not the objective. The ultimate objective of any company is increased net profit. With the correct information at hand, managers can make informed decision with full insight into the activities of any part of the business. They are even able to understand the real cost contribution of each customer, ensuring high-value clients receive the appropriate service and low-value clients can be encouraged to look for better value from the business.
The Hyperion FDQM system is not a standalone offering, but fits into other Hyperion application suites such as enterprise planning and profitability, as well as cost management systems. It can access data from almost any database system, even external to the company, when required. It effectively supports the consolidation process of the holding company and ensures there is no longer a gap between the general ledger and consolidation and reporting.
“The financial figures derived are real and queries can be tracked by drilling down into the source data, no matter where it comes from,” adds van der Merwe. “FDQM closes the door to incorrect and confusing reporting, giving stakeholders confidence to make decisions on data that they know is accurate.”
When working towards increased investor confidence it is important to provide complete transparency, van der Merwe says, adding that a sound profitability and cost management system, linked with quality and trustworthy financial data will enable scenario analysis by region, product and client. It will also assist in the allocation of variable costs, while taking fixed costs into account.
“Such a scenario is bound to build confidence with the most cynical financial analysts and have a positive effect on share prices and investor confidence, both crucial aspects to thriving in this market,” he concludes.
Protecting Financial Institutions from Operational Risks
- Human Error
- Systems Failure
- Process Failure
- Inadequate Controls and Monitoring
- Financing techniques that reduce credit and market risk, but enhance operational risk
Measuring and Managing Operational Risk
- Enterprise-wide culture and commitment
- Governance for operational risk management
- The role of regulation
- Technological changes that improve an organisations ability to measure and manage operational risk
- Potential responses to operational risk
- Dynamic risk identification
Essbase 11.1.2 New Features review
In my last post I gave a brief overview of some of the new features in EPM 11.1.2, specifically from an installation and environment point of view. Today I want to focus specifically on Essbase, and what is good, great and maybe unfortunate in the new release. This is by no means a comprehensive overview of all the new features, but rather my take on some of the more interesting aspects.
EPM security link – Essbase apparently does not store user details in the .SEC file, if running in EPM security mode. This means there is no need to synchronize security between Shared Services and Essbase any more. This is very good news, as this synchronization added an extra step which could be forgotten and meant security issues all the time.
Allocations on ASO cubes – You can now perform allocations on ASO cubes, previously this could only be done in BSO. One more reason to go ASO rather than BSO as a default? If that is not all, the next feature might convince you…
Custom Calculations on ASO – Basically this means you can now write calc scripts for ASO cubes. Not as fully featured yet as for BSO, for example you can only target level 0 cells, but a step in making ASO on par with BSO in terms of calculation capability. Will BSO eventually fall away…?
New @XWRITE function – the inverse of the @XREF function. During calculation you can write to data blocks in the same or other remote cubes (whereas @XREF pulls data from remote cubes). Very useful if you have distributed cube environment with data dependencies, as from a central calculation you can update all dependent cubes, rather than pulling data from calcs in each cube.
32 alias tables – Instead of 10 you can now have up to 32 alias tables. I guess this is good for some applications, I must be honest in all my years of using Essbase I have never used more than 6 alias tables in a single cube, and that was an extreme case.
IPv6 support – As all the other modules in EPM 11.1.2, Essbase also supports the new IPv6 internet protocol, which aims to allow many more addressable internet addresses.
OCI support – Essbase can now use OCI to connect directly to Oracle sources in load rules, rather than ODBC. It helps that Oracle is now the boss…
Monitor progress of data loads and dim builds – While data loads or dim builds are in progress, you can now query the progress, to get info such as which stage of the process is taking place, number of records processed and rejected, etc. This can be done if you kick off an asynchronous data load or dim build only. Very useful to track progress, something you previously couldn’t really do, short of continually refreshing the log file to get some idea of what is happening.
Error handling in Calc Scripts – Using the new @RETURN function you can exit a calc script with a custom error code based on results of an IF..THEN statement. This means you can add a lot more logic to error handling in calc scripts, and return meaningful codes.
MaxL Error Handling improved – You have an IfError in the MaXL Shell that can detect errors like syntax and no permission errors. You can therefore directly in the MaxL shell test for more complicated errors and exit with a return code, or continue processing. This should make error trapping and processing in MaxL scripts a little better than currently possible.
Export metadata to XML files – Another addition to the sorely lacking metadata export in Essbase has been added. You can now export metadata to an XML file, using a MaxL command (EXPORT OUTLINE). These XML files can then be used by other proceses where you need outline information, or to compare outlines. I assume at a later stage you will be able to import from these XML files?
Failover support – You could do failover for Essbase with High Availability Services, but they now made it possible through using Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN). This offers comprehensive failoverand clustering support for Essbase.
This is some of the more important new features, there are more, if you want to read about these yourself you can access the EPM documentation at the following link:
Understanding Key Risk Indicators
Key Risk Indicators or KRI is a widely used term among senior managers and risk managers. However, although this term is used frequently in business, many managers still battle to design and implement a good Key Risk Indicator System because of several challenges, including:
- Multiple source systems
- Inconsistent terminology
- A lack of leading risk indicators
- A lack of a clear Risk Mitigation strategy
Multiple sources
Integrating information from a number of disparate source systems can be time consuming, complex, and difficult.
Inconsistent Terminology
Stakeholders in deferent positions within the organization often use conflicting terminology when it comes to risk measures and key performance indicators causing confusion and delay in reaching a common understanding.
No Leading risk indicators
A good risk management system will contain several key leading key risk indicators KRIs designed to alert the organization before a material risk event impacts on the organization. Defining leading Key risk indicators can only be done effectively if a holistic view of each risk event and the interdependencies between risk events are analysed by the organization.
Risk Mitigation
Once a risk has been identified, a course of action must be decided on how to treat the risk. The risk may be accepted or mitigated both courses of action must be monitored and managed. If a risk is to be mitigated it is imperative that mitigation steps identified are implemented and monitored..
Oracle Solutions for Governance, Risk and Compliance
To help executives and risk managers meet the aforementioned challenges, Oracle delivers an end-to-end Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) platform that works in dynamic business environments. By combining risk intelligence and analytics, Oracle GRC ensures you can:
- Leverage a centralised ‘warehouse’ of GRC information
- Manage GRC processes across the enterprise
- Protect critical information assets at all levels
- Monitor key processes and controls
- Report on exceptions
For more information, please contact Simon du Plooy at EOH Oracle CFO Services on 011 607 8200.
Oracle Hyperion EPM 11.1.2 is now available
We are pleased to announce the immediate general availability of Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System release 11.1.2 on Oracle’s eDelivery download center — http://edelivery.oracle.com/.
Oracle EPM System release 11.1.2 is a major new release with new applications as well as significant enhancements to existing EPM applications, BI foundation components, and common EPM technologies. Highlights of this new release include:
New Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management application
New Oracle Hyperion Disclosure Management application
New Oracle Hyperion Public Sector Planning and Budgeting module
Enhancements and new functionality in nearly all EPM applications, including:
Oracle Hyperion Planning
Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management
Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management
Oracle Hyperion Financial Management
Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management
Enhancements to BI foundation components and common EPM technologies, including:
Oracle Essbase
Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office
Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting
Oracle Hyperion EPM Architect and Calculation Manager
Oracle Hyperion EPM Shared Services
Availability in 15 languages to support global deployments
