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Enterprise Management Excellence

Improve your digital enterprise management & compliance processes

Even data is subject to changes in temperature: data is referred to as “cold” if it has been archived on hard drives in databases for years and will only be accessed in exceptional cases, while “hot data”, on the other hand, is current data that is found in in-memory databases and used for quick analyses, dashboards or planning and simulation.

Compliance requirements for data archiving, including the transparency of any changes to master data and transactional data, can be realized using data warehouse solutions. The attraction here is that operative legacy systems can also be decommissioned, since the relevant data from all systems is stored in a central archive, where it is available for auditing and inspection.

The focus of analytical solutions is to support the business planning and enterprise management process, while also ensuring deliverability. The following points help provide some guidance:

1. Consistent management concept

The control approach defines which KPIs, dimensions and processes will be used to manage the company. This “framework” applies for all employees. Decisive here is focusing on key influences and consistently defining and documenting them throughout the entire company.

Particularly important: a consistent process, from strategic and financial planning to operational planning and management. Within that context, the planning process is the central element on every level, where objectives and key results are set, communicated and common understanding is achieved. This ensures that everyone knows their exact role in the mission.

The management system objectives and key results OKR is a good baseline allowing a tailor-made approach.

2. Integrated, continuous planning

Ideally, digital enterprise management integrates all lower-level plans (e.g., marketing and sales planning, investment planning, HR planning) into a single plan balance sheet and P&L statement. With continuous planning, the plan balance sheet is adjusted in regular intervals to reflect new developments, keeping planning up-to-date. Consequently, planning and management becomes a continuous activity, not something just tackled once a year. However, that does not mean the budget should change as well. Instead, it is important that it is left unchanged so that a deviation analysis can be performed and appropriate measures taken, thereby maximizing the management effect.

3. Fully-integrated business intelligence systems

Thanks to new technologies, decision makers now have real-time access to information, with optimal formats and degree of detail. From the complexity of large, unstructured volumes of data comes “data to wisdom”: insights from analysis generate knowledge that can be a competitive advantage. These systems also support processes with workflow functions, allowing everyone involved in a process to be automatically informed about what and when they need to deliver input.

Furthermore, the in-memory data storage means data is more readily available. At the same time, complete and fully-integrated solutions can be designed within that context, so that, in many cases, multiple redundant data storage finally becomes a thing of the past. Bringing things back to a single point of truth, while avoiding time-consuming loading processes and the resulting control and reconciliation processes.

In addition, management cockpits, digital boardrooms and dashboards provide a highlyconsolidated view of the information and render it intuitively comprehensible – instructions can even be given by voice command. The use of thresholds is also advisable. Doing so allows owners to be automatically informed when pre-defined events occur, goals are reached or specifications are not met.

The corresponding modification of the management processes also offers numerous opportunities, including the opportunity to optimally implement compliance requirements.