Finance portals: a view to tomorrow's business strategies.

• Author: Wolfendale, Mark
• Position: Shared Services - Shared services and finance portal benefit chief financial officers by providing needed information efficiently

While the benefits of operating through a centralized environment have been obvious for some time, new finance portals provide a complete and real-time picture of corporate performance.

Now, perhaps more than ever, businesses around the world are recognizing the importance of operating in a centralized or shared services environemnt. Until now, it was one clear way to provide senior management with access to all of the latest financial figures for items such as revenue growth and expenditures. But, like most things in business, even this is changing, and managers are being faced with new demands for increasingly more detailed financial information.

Today's CFOs need access to all financial key performance indicators (KPIs), and they need it in a timely and informative manner that makes it instantly recognizable. How do you deliver a comprehensive, multifaceted overview of some 20-plus KPIs in the space of one computer screen? One way that many are opting for is to leverage the strengths of their already-established shared services environment with innovative finance portal technology. Finance portals allow users to gain a comprehensive, real-time picture of corporate performance--with just a few mouse clicks.

Shared Services First

The benefits of operating from a shared services environment have been apparent for quite some time. By far the biggest advantage is the ability to process all of a business's financial data through one centralized database. This avoids duplication of services, creates a standard global chart of accounts and helps implement standard processes. It also offers the benefit of centrally controlled procurement, centralized reporting and increased flexibility for training and knowledge sharing.

All of these benefits contribute to lower costs through a reduction in hardware, software and IT resources. Plus, senior managers can gain real-time access to information that allows them the ability to "drill-down" to see as much detail as required.

One of the many companies to adopt the centralized processing environment is Quincy, Mass.-based CitiStreet. The firm is a 50/50 joint venture between Boston-based State Street Corp. and New York-based Citigroup that serves more than 7.5 million participants and administers approximately $180 billion in assets in the U.S. for defined contribution, defined benefit and health and welfare plans of corporate, government, health care, Taft-Hartley and not-for-profit organizations.

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