2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Complexity

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Cost

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Economic Return

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Information Access

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Productivity

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Role of IT

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Running IT

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2010 Hackett Performance Metrics - Information Technology: Staffing

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

On-Demand Sourcing: Driving Costs Down and Value Up in a Period of Increased Business Volatility

A new type of IT organization is emerging in the wake of the recession: one that has minimized fixed-cost components in favor of on-demand strategies and processes that enable cost variability. The objective is to position businesses to both capitalize on opportunities and minimize risks inherent in today’s high-volatility economic environment. This can be accomplished by exploiting new Service Delivery Models that help increase business capability (e.g., faster response time). Effective strategies link business performance with IT-driven initiatives, responsiveness and the costs of service delivery, transforming the IT function into a valued business partner. This contrasts sharply with traditional, one-dimensional strategies focused mostly on just cutting IT costs.

Global Company Increases the Value of Its Technology Investments via Standardization, Consolidation

This case study describes a global materials company that moved its IT organization under the umbrella of a multi-function Global Business Services unit. The goal was to take IT from a regional to a truly global Service Delivery Model, yet maintain cost effectiveness by an aggressive program of consolidation, standardization and embracing outsourcing/offshoring. To date, $100 million has been eliminated from the IT cost base in creating an organization that utilizes offshore centers, increased customer satisfaction and compliance, and demonstrated agility by maintaining SG&A costs in line with revenues, even during the recent recession. IT continues to increase its value contribution by expanding these practices beyond the back office through a highly standardized technology foundation benefiting both the business and other shared services functions.

Technology Investment Done Right Saves Money in Finance, Procurement, HR...and IT

Technology enablement is a critical component for companies in their quest to achieve world-class performance levels in G&A. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, companies with world-class G&A operations do not spend more on technology in G&A than their peers. They achieve these higher levels of G&A technology enablement at lower cost through a focus on continuous improvement in IT, evergreening of the application architecture, and optimization of technology management and investment allocation processes. As a result, G&A technology investment is largely self-funded. This insight justifies aggressive G&A technology investment strategies for companies that have fallen behind the curve, and ongoing investment in the G&A application platform for those that are ahead of the curve.

G&A Organizations Have Failed the Agility Test

Unprecedented declines in consumer demand, heightened business uncertainty and intense global competitive pressure are testing the agility of G&A organizations as never before.New Hackett research reveals that G&A organizations by and large have failed to demonstrate the appropriate agility to respond to the rapidly declining revenue trends and avoid being a drag on profits. Between Q1 2008 and Q1 2009, Global 1000 companies saw their revenues decline by 13.3%, while their SG&A costs declined by only 1.9%. Since one proven approach to increasing agility is optimization of their global G&A service delivery, executives should take action immediately to define and develop an appropriate Service Delivery Model for G&A.

IT Metric of the Month July 2009: Outsourcing Allocation

Outsourcing allocation, the percentage of outsourced cost in the total process cost, is an important and closely watched metric. World-class companies outsource a substantially larger portion of their IT processes than peer group companies.

International Paper: Improving IT Performance Through Service Catalog Management

Establishing a service catalog, with mature service performance management and formal process definitions, correlates with top performance in IT business value management. International Paper’s IT organization established a three-step process to define and manage service provisioning for the enterprise. The keystone of the process is the idea of collaborative service communities that have end-to-end responsibility for a particular IT service. This approach helps the company better match supply with demand of technology and related services, and fosters business-oriented discussions between IT and its internal customers about IT’s responsiveness, cost and quality. This in turn has helped International Paper increase IT’s effectiveness and efficiency.

Developing Service Level Agreement Metrics for the IT Help-Desk

The Hackett Group has developed a guide to defining and measuring 20 service levels for IT help-desk. Companies can use this guide to create or enhance their service level agreements with both in-house organizations and external, third-party service providers. Category A consists of five service levels that are both very relevant and easily measured. Category B features five service levels that are of medium relevance and may be less measurable. The remaining two service levels reside in Category C and are characterized by their low relevance, low impact and difficulty in measurement. Special feature: A detailed matrix of 20 help-desk service level definitions, metrics, reporting cycles and other attributes.

Organizing for Successful IT Business Alignment

Aligning IT strategies and operations with the goals of the business is crucial for obtaining maximum value from the IT organization. Described in the context of findings from Hackett's 2008 IT Business Value Management study, the experience of one client, a global hospitality company, are discussed in this analysis. The client deployed three proven practices for achieving effective IT business alignment. First, it created a tiered IT governance model linking business needs and strategies with IT’s capabilities and resources. It also instituted a portfolio management process that uses a value and risk scoring approach to project/program management. Finally, a new customer-relations manager role was created to represent the “voice of the customer” within IT and ensure that business value from IT investments is identified and protected. Benefits to date include a doubling of the rate of projects successfully delivered, a 78% increase in project quality, and a rise of 45% on return on capital of IT investments.

IT Metric of the Month January 2009: Demand Management: A Top-Priority IT Issue in 2009

For 2009, the emerging focus on demand management marks a shift from a historical emphasis on increasing IT delivery capacity through efficiency improvements. While efficiency-related goals are not going away, IT executives increasingly recognize that, irrespective of budget or level of capability efficiency, demand will always outstrip supply. Therefore, demand management is a crucial discipline for managing the gap between IT supply and demand.

Hackett Sourcing Location Guide: Romania

Among the central and eastern European countries, Romania is the top destination for the services industry, scoring high on labor costs, productivity and skills. It has a skilled labor pool, especially in IT and IT services, but rising infrastructure and labor costs may make Romania less attractive in the future. Negatives include poorer-than-average telecom infrastructure, transport and logistics infrastructure and social climate.

Hackett Sourcing Location Guide: Estonia

Estonia is proving popular with companies (including outsourcers) from the Nordic region, Russia, Poland and Germany in search of a nearby, stable source of low-cost labor for their service centers. It has a small but well-educated labor force, yet compared with other EU countries, labor costs are still low. The services industry constitutes nearly 67% of the country's GDP. A stable political and economic environment, good IT infrastructure and cultural affinity with the Western European markets have greatly contributed to the success of Estonia's services industry, including captive facilities and third-party vendors. In 2007, Estonia became more prominent as an attractive services destination after debuting at number 15 on A.T. Kearney's list of the top 50 global outsourcing locations. In that report, Estonia was compared to what Ireland used to be 10 to 15 years ago: a relatively low-cost European location with largely untapped talent and a pro-business policy environment.

Understanding the Relationship Between Complexity, IT Performance and IT Cost

IT complexity has a measurable impact on IT efficiency, and specifically on IT cost per end-user. Compared to the peer group, the top-quartile of the least-complex IT organizations run IT at 14% lower cost, while the cost advantage for the top decile in this group is over 30%. But simply focusing on driving cost and complexity out of IT will not, in and of itself, get companies to world-class performance levels. Rather, additional investment in effectiveness-oriented capabilities such as portfolio management, governance and talent management is required. Companies may elect to postpone this additional investment until economic conditions improve, and aim to achieve world-class efficiency first. Nevertheless, IT complexity reduction needs to be an integral part of any organization’s IT strategy.

Textron: Driving Transformation and Enabling the Networked Enterprise Led to a 15.5% Increase in ROIC

Challenged with lagging stock prices, a worldwide recession and slowing sales, Textron launched a broad-based transformation effort in 2001. Specifically, the company sought to improve performance within its diverse business units by better leveraging the overall value of the corporation and by operating as a networked enterprise. Functional areas, including HR and IT, and the business units were given a mandate to dramatically increase efficiency and synergies. Textron’s IT organization played a leading role in the transformation, centralizing functions and enabling the creation of shared services organizations to support common processes across business units. Centralization is a common theme of world-class IT performers. Textron’s experience demonstrates how rationalizing IT – even across dissimilar business units – significantly reduced SG&A costs, increased return on invested capital and highlighted IT’s critical role as a strategic enabler of critical turnaround initiatives.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: COST

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and eff ectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: STAFFING

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and eff ectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: PRODUCTIVITY

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and eff ectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: COMPLEXITY

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and eff ectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: RUNNING IT

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and eff ectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: ROLE OF IT

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate trade-offs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: ECONOMIC RETURN

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and eff ectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

2007 HACKETT PERFORMANCE METRICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: INFORMATION ACCESS

World-class companies, as defined by The Hackett Group's empirically based methodology, have not necessarily achieved excellence in all areas, but, using selected best practices, they have been able to strike the right balance of efficiency and eff ectiveness. As a result, they are able to create conditions that enable them to compete against the best companies around the globe, even if they themselves are not global organizations. World-class organizations have attained their superior performance levels because they have made appropriate tradeoffs and decisions regarding the practices they follow, and they have executed on them extremely well.

Minimizing the Pain of Time Reporting to Improve IT Project Management

Though generally unpopular among IT staff, time reporting within the program management office (PMO) is critical to effective demand management, avoidance of time and cost overruns, and even the ability to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. While many problems with time reporting are traceable to technology that is too narrow in scope to provide an actionable big-picture outlook, a good deal of the cultural resistance that plagues time reporting projects can be overcome through simple, non-technology-based activities.

NCR’s Journey to World-Class IT Performance

NCR cut its IT cost as a percent of revenue from over 5% in 2002 to just 2.2% in 2006, without impacting effectiveness or service levels. This remarkable feat challenges the conventional wisdom that IT costs are largely fixed and can only be reduced incrementally. NCR achieved this savings through a series of initiatives across the entire IT operation. This Executive Insight gives a high-level overview of NCR’s journey to world-class performance levels.

Implement Data Governance through Data Stewardship

Data governance is a critical capability to realizing the value of IT investment. Companies trying to implement data governance solely through the use of technology are misguided; it is a fundamentally a human-centric process. Hackett advocates data stewardship as a best practice for data governance. Data stewardship involves formalized accountability for information assets through data stewards, who are part of a broader data stewardship committee. This committee should combine both technical and business roles. Also, the committee should operate in a hierarchical structure, getting guidance from the executive data governance council. Executive sponsorship is critical for success of the model. Companies can establish effective data governance through the stewardship model by following the guidelines offered in this Executive Insight.

Don't Ignore the "Soft" Side of Transformation Programs: Change Management is Critical for Success

Both theory and practice confirm that change management is critical for realization of transformation program objectives. In this Executive Insight, Hackett offers empirical evidence, as well as a case study, to support this claim. Companies should plan for change proactively and approach change management as a formal discipline. The often observed, ad hoc, reactive approach to change management is the root cause of many program failures. As a result, even though change management is a soft skill, investment in it will yield very high returns through improved program delivery performance.

World-Class IT Processes Are Critical for Successful Technology Infrastructure Outsourcing

Hackett data shows that peer companies do not realize cost savings as a result of technology infrastructure outsourcing, while world-class companies' technology infrastructure outsourcing correlates with only slightly lower process cost. World-class companies with a focus on effectiveness are making the most use of infrastructure technology outsourcing. The Hackett Group's 2006 IT Sourcing Study shows that most companies cite cost as the primary driver of their technology infrastructure outsourcing strategy. By far, the high level of technology infrastructure outsourcing is found in world-class effectiveness companies -suggesting that this is a successful strategy to achieve high levels of IT effectiveness. By outsourcing commodity technical infrastructure tasks to external service providers, these companies are able to focus internal resources on value-added tasks involving relationship management and engagement with the business. This Insight explores the relationship between technology infrastructure outsourcing and IT efficiency and effectiveness.

Managing the Impact of ERP Programs on IT Complexity - Technical Architecture

This Insight is the sixth and final in a series that explores the relationship between business complexity, enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs, IT complexity and world-class performance. This Insight analyzes the relationship between ERP programs and technical architecture. Studies of world-class IT organizations reveal a number of best practices for reduction of IT complexity in traditional monolithic ERP environments, including consolidation of the IT portfolio and its supporting technical infrastructure. All major ERP vendors' product suites are evolving from monolithic to component-based applications. The transition and best practices for companies to employ for managing technical architecture are examined in this report.

Managing the Impact of ERP Programs on Complexity - Application Architecture

This Insight is the fourth in a series that explores the relationship between business complexity, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programs, IT complexity and world-class performance. This research analyzes the central role of application architecture in the complex relationship. ERPs are at the core of any company's application architecture, and how that architecture looks is affected by key decisions that IT executives must make. These decisions include whether and how to consolidate multiple ERP systems and complementary products, and whether to adopt a single-version or multi-vendor product strategy. Today, the application architecture choices that will take an organization down the road to world-class effectiveness and efficiency are driven by the nature of the organization and its business strategy more than by technical considerations. This Insight offers best practices and advice for CIOs and other IT executives from a business and technical perspective for planning their IT strategy and allocating their IT budget.

Constellation Energy: Transforming IT into a Strategic Asset

IT has played a major role in Constellation Energy's transformation from traditional utility to a leading North American energy provider. In this case study, Beth S. Perlman, Constellation's Senior Vice President and CIO, discusses how the IT organization obtained the trust of the business units and came to be regarded as a strategic asset. Despite the obvious challenges presented by assimilating newly acquired businesses into its IT infrastructure, Constellation has successfully pursued a strategy of rationalization and is positioned for its next challenge, a merger with Florida Power & Light, which will grow the company by some 60%. Gaining the ear of senior management and pursuing standardization and simplification of platforms and applications to reduce operating costs and increase agility in servicing internal customers were key features of Constellation's transformation of its IT function into strategic business asset.

MeadWestvaco: Improvements Made Following Merger Center on Becoming - and Remaining - World-Class In IT

Mergers and acquisitions are always replete with significant complexities. Each entity brings to the deal its own uniquely configured systems, processes, policies and suppliers - as well as often markedly different organizational cultures. This case study describes how the leaders of the new IT organization that emerged from the 2002 merger of Mead Corporation (a provider of packaging products) and Westvaco (specialty papers, consumer and office products, and specialty chemicals) bucked this negative trend. While transitioning what were two average-performing IT organizations into a unified function that today delivers world-class performance, MeadWestvaco's IT leadership ensured that its vision and strategies were perfectly aligned with those of the new enterprise.

The Impact of ERP Programs on IT Complexity - Application Maintenance and Support

This Hackett Book of Numbers™ Insight is the third in a series that explores the relationship between business complexity, ERP programs, IT complexity and world-class performance. This research examines the role of application maintenance and support in managing the impact on complexity of ERP programs. The majority of cost and benefits of ERP is accrued in the maintenance and support phase. This realization, combined with the maturing and professionalization of the IT service organization, are the main reasons behind the strong drive to rationalize ERP maintenance and support processes. Adopting a formal process model as the foundation for application maintenance and support process for ERP is strongly recommended from Hackett analysis of world-class IT organizations. Service level management based on SLAs and KPIs should be at the center of such a process model. Sourcing decisions should also be an integral element of the maintenance and support strategy. Other practices discussed in this publication include the use of competency centers as a flexible model for organizing diverse sets of resources and skillsets and the use of ITIL as a standard process model for IT service management.

The Impact of ERP Programs on IT Complexity - Program Management

This Hackett Book of Numbers™ Insight is the second in a series that explores the relationship between business complexity, enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs, IT complexity and world-class performance. In this research, the role of program management in managing the impact on complexity of ERP programs is discussed. Hackett analysis reveals that 90% of world-class organizations manage their projects through a program management office (PMO) governance structure, making it a best practice for ERP program management. The PMO adds a layer between individual projects and program sponsors, eliminates complexity in project communications and adds a consistent methodological framework to projects. Best-in-class PMOs are concerned only with projects that have clear start- and end-points, versus continuous activities, such as service management. This Insight identifies and discusses three critical program management disciplines that have the most immediate and extensive impact on IT complexity: organizational change management, scope management and sourcing/vendor relationship management.

The Impact of ERP Programs on IT Complexity - Analytical Framework

This Hackett Book of Numbers™ Insight is the first in a series that explores the relationship between business complexity, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programs, IT complexity and world-class performance. This research introduces and examines the overall framework for the analysis, which is not just a theoretical construct, but a number of causal relationships supported by Hackett research. A consolidated ERP is an integral element of an IT strategy that leads to world-class performance due to ERP's ability to support increasing business complexity without escalating IT complexity. This alone, though, does not guarantee world-class performance. The impact of ERP programs on IT complexity must be managed through a broad set of best practices. A focused effort to control ERP's impact on IT complexity is a proven path to realizing the potential of an organization's ERP investment.

2005 Performance Metrics and Practices of World-Class Human Resources Organizations

Top-of-mind issues among HR leaders - such as managing costs, minimizing risk, capitalizing on the promise of Web technologies, and making appropriate business process sourcing decisions - are all examined in detail in this research. The nearly 70 charts in this volume represent data selected from hundreds of different performance metrics and best practices in use at client organizations worldwide, and demonstrate the most significant differentiators between specific world-class performers (as identified by our empirically based methodology) and their more typical peers.

World-Class Companies Best-Practice-Based ERP Implementation to Drive Maximum ROI

At most organizations, ERP implementations and upgrades have consistently fallen short of the benefits anticipated. A primary reason is that organizations are unable to successfully implement best practices that would help them extract the maximum benefit from their enterprise applications. Obtaining expected benefits of ERP projects is often tied directly to adoption of these best practices. Even if an organization can agree to implement a specific best practice early in the project, the necessary detail and rigor is often lacking in order to fully realize the intended benefit by addressing all of the dimensions associated with its implementation. This report describes ways in which world-class IT organizations are approaching ERP implementations and upgrades, identifying necessary steps in the early stages of the project to ensure project success. It also illustrates how selected best practices in people, process and technology must be incorporated throughout the entire project lifecycle and in each tool used along the way.

Data Standards and Governance Are Essential to Providing Meaningful Information to Executives

Countless companies have undertaken a significant journey to restructure their organization, processes and technology to create a global view of their internal and external constituencies. Toward this end, significant investments are being made in the implementation of ERP systems and development of new decision-support applications. Among the critical success factors for successfully integrating these new systems with existing legacy applications is 1) the development of a common set of data standards, including data definitions, value sets, business rules and reporting hierarchies, and 2) creation of a data governance model that establishes consistent definitions of key attributes addressed by business intelligence and other systems.

Financial Application Vendor Choice Is Irrelevant in Effort to Achieve World-Class Performance

ERP vendors would like you to believe that their finance applications offer a distinct competitive advantage, such as self-service or built-in best practices. But how different are they really, when it comes to finance functionality? And to what degree does application vendor choice really drive whether your company can achieve world-class performance in finance? Hackett data confirms what many have suspected for some time: Finance functionality is a virtual commodity among the top ERP vendors, and the way that processes and organizational best practices are incorporated as part of ERP deployment is more directly responsible for implementation success than the decision about which vendor's product to select.

Best Practices to Build High-Value Enterprise Portals

To derive more value from their data and IT infrastructures and improve their decision-making capability, many companies are turning to enterprise portals. But to generate the highest levels of ROI from investments in enterprise portals, it is imperative that companies take a holistic approach and follow portal best practices, as defined in a recent study conducted by The Hackett Group and its parent company, Answerthink, Inc.

Application Integration: Making the Wrong Choices Increases Costs, Decreases Stability and Flexibility

Most large enterprises struggle with decisions about how to systematically integrate or link their applications. And for every new technology-enabled solution added to the portfolio, these decisions become more and more critical (and costly, if not done correctly). Although criteria for making good solution-integration decisions has always been the responsibility of both IT and the business, the unfortunate truth is that long-term technology and business implications are rarely considered.

Your Sarbanes Compliance Activities Are Being Wasted If Your ERP Isn't Compliant

Despite the urgency of meeting Sarbanes-Oxley's requirements regarding internal controls, many companies have not yet integrated regular ERP application assessments into their compliance efforts. Indeed, a survey of 30 large public companies by The Hackett Group indicates that only 20% of companies periodically review their internal controls. The remainder are still in planning stages or have conducted only one review to date. Further, only 50% periodically conduct a security audit of their applications and data access.