Reporting for Duty: Achieving Corporate Reporting Excellence

Information − both financial and non-financial − has always been a prerequisite for excellence. And extensive Accenture research shows that the ability to translate business information and insights into action is a key characteristic of today’s high-performance business.

Yet all too many companies are unable to master this vital capability because their reporting processes and systems that are no longer adequate for their needs. But the tools are now available to transform an organization’s reporting capabilities − fueling its progress along the road to high performance.

To steer a company effectively, and to fulfill legal and regulatory obligations, managements have an urgent need for reporting capabilities that permit the sharing and delivery of consistent and transparent information. Better information enables timely decision-making and supports expansion into global markets.

More and more businesses are taking these messages on board. As a result, like athletes whose world-class performance depends on the excellence of their physical conditioning, world-class companies are now working on measures and initiatives to ensure the fitness of their reporting capabilities.

In every industry, a handful of the best companies excel at steering their enterprises and fulfilling their compliance obligations based on information that is effective, accurate and consistent. Yet even these companies are feeling the information crunch more intensely than ever before.

A number of external requirements and developments have aligned to put pressure on every company’s reporting capabilities. These requirements and developments are:

• More intense competition and shortened innovation cycles
• Increased complexity
• New regulatory requirements
• Global expansion
• Mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations.

In response to these factors, companies in search of high performance are changing the way they think about reporting.

This change is seeing the leaders move from a mind set of ‘delivering data’ to one that emphasizes the sharing of information and the provision of rapid, anywhere access to the information needed to deliver business insights. In focusing on these attributes, these businesses are supporting not only their transactional processing needs, but also the strategic needs of management.

Accenture is enabling businesses worldwide to put this change into effect through the Accenture Corporate Reporting Excellence Offering. This proven solution helps global companies in every industry develop high-performance information-sharing and delivery capabilities. It does this by enabling them to put in place the functions, processes and technologies that can shorten reporting cycles in support of competitive advantage, at the same time as enhancing regulatory compliance.

Growing numbers of major clients are now realizing these benefits. We worked with Siemens AG to deliver a ground¬breaking, web-enabled reporting capability that allows Siemens’ workforce to speak the same financial language and work smarter. And we teamed with Deutsche Telekom AG to design and implement an integrated system that provides a new and more efficient way for the company’s financial departments to plan and report their data, both externally and internally. The new system also facilitated the transition to US-GAAP, and drove a 50 percent reduction in the financial reporting cycle for the entire group.

Central and Local Technology and Functions

The key to delivering all these benefits lies in the solution’s rigorous focus not only on the technology enablers, but also on the functions and processes that unite a company from a reporting perspective and keep it on track. Crucially, it fulfills the unique needs of two crucial organizational entities: central headquarters on the one hand, and the local businesses or units on the other (see Figure 1).

This approach enables the Accenture Corporate Reporting Excellence Offering to deliver benefits in four main areas.

1. Central functions and processes: The Accenture Corporate Reporting Excellence Offering helps to create effective functions and processes at the central level in three ways:

• Cascading performance measures
• Multidimensional profitability
• Project accounting.

2. Local functions and processes: Several key capabilities at the local level contribute to the effectiveness of a reporting solution:

• Common language for both financial and non-financial data
• Uniform accounting logic
• Shared services
• Local data responsibility.

3. Central technology enablers: The solution includes a data factory based on detailed information, as well as a flexible aggregation and data analysis capability. This centralized factory provides control, judgment, analysis, interpretation and explanation based on consistent reports across all legal and management reporting dimensions.

4. Local technology enablers: The Accenture solution helps companies develop a database template that balances central and local information needs. Centralized accounting logic represents the detailed specification for accounting treatment and includes organizational central¬ization at the regional level, guaranteeing a high level of application consistency and comparability.

The Resulting Benefits

Companies that have teamed with Accenture to implement a reporting excellence solution have achieved higher levels of performance thanks to a number of major benefits. These include: • Improved access to international capital markets by ensuring that the reporting system is based on multi-GAAP accounting principles.

• Reduced reporting costs, by as much as 46 percent, through optimized processes and systems and through the integration of management reporting and legal consolidation.
  
  
• Improved data quality because of the virtual database and templates that deliver quality at the source.
  
  
• Increased business flexibility because of decreased system complexity and quicker implementation of new IT requirements.
  
  
• Better and faster access to information for decision makers through Web-based reporting solutions.
  
  
• Faster reporting cycles, as much as 50 percent faster, thanks to reduced data logistics and fewer adjustments.

The overall message is clear. By achieving reporting excellence, companies today can cut their reporting costs significantly. Just as important, they can foster better strategic decision-making and improve shareholder confidence. Compared with trying to build an in-house solution, the Accenture Corporate Reporting Excellence Offering enables them to achieve all this faster − and with greater certainty.

Andreas Schuler is a partner in Accenture’s Communications & High Tech industry group based in Munich.