Frequently Asked Questions

Financial Planning is a key planning process carried-out by the businesses of all sizes. The plan is based on the business strategy approved by the board of directors. Led by the Finance team in the office of the CFO, this is a collaborative effort from various departments in the organisation. 

Budgeting is a key financial process that produces a document which gives the guidance for each department on the projected income and expenses. Budgeting is an annual activity with quarterly/half-yearly review and adjustments.

Forecasting is a key financial activity involves predicting the companies key financial indicators such as revenue, cash flow, expenses, or sales based on available past data.

SaaS (Software as a Service): Ready-to-use software applications delivered over the internet. Think of it like renting an apartment – you get access to everything you need, but you don’t own the building itself. Saas Provider manages everything – the underlying infrastructure, the platform, and the application itself. User: Simply accesses and uses the software. Examples: Microsoft 365, Gmail, Salesforce, SAP S/4 Hana Public Cloud, Oracle Fusion, Microsoft Dynamics365 etc.

PaaS (Platform as a Service): A cloud-based platform for developers to build, run, and manage applications. It’s like renting a furnished workshop – you have the tools and space you need to create, but you don’t have to worry about building maintenance. Paas Provider: Manages the underlying infrastructure and the development tools. User: Responsible for developing, deploying, and managing their applications and data. Examples: Microsoft Power BI, Salesforce Lightning, SAP BTP, Oracle Cloud Platform,

Iaas (Infrastructure as a service): Provides the fundamental building blocks of computing – servers, storage, and networking – over the cloud. It’s like renting a plot of land – you have complete control over what you build, but you’re also responsible for all the construction and upkeep. Provider: Manages the physical infrastructure (data centers, servers, networking hardware). User: Has the most control. Responsible for managing the operating systems, applications, data, and security configurations. Examples: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

ERP is a type of software that integrates various core business processes like finance, HR, manufacturing, supply chain,and customer relationship management into a unified system. It streamlines operations, improves efficiency, and provides real-time visibility into your entire business.

On-Premises ERP:

• The software is installed and run on servers located within the organization’s own data center. This provides maximum control and data security but requires significant upfront investment and IT resources for maintenance.

Cloud ERP:

• The ERP system is hosted and managed by a third-party provider and accessed via the internet. This offers flexibility, scalability, and lower upfront costs, but relies on the provider’s infrastructure and security measures.
• Public Cloud ERP: The ERP system is shared by multiple organizations on the same cloud infrastructure. This is generally the most cost-effective option but may have limitations in terms of customization and data isolation.
• Private Cloud ERP: The ERP system is dedicated to a single organization and hosted on a private cloud infrastructure. This provides greater control and security than public cloud but can be more expensive.

• Tier 1 ERP: Large-scale, comprehensive ERP systems designed for global enterprises with complex needs. Examples include SAP S/4 Hana, Oracle ERP Cloud, and Microsoft Dynamics.
• Tier 2 ERP: Mid-market ERP systems catering to the needs of growing businesses with less complexity than large enterprises. Examples include NetSuite, Epicor, Infor, Microsoft Business Central, SAP Business One (B1), SAP Business By Design (ByD)
• Tier 3 ERP: Small business ERP systems designed for smaller organizations with basic needs and limited budgets. Examples include QuickBooks Enterprise and Sage 50cloud.
• Industry-Specific ERP: Tailored ERP solutions designed for specific industries, addressing their unique requirements and processes.
• Open-Source ERP: ERP systems with freely available source code, offering flexibility and customization but requiring technical expertise for implementation and maintenance.

Difficulty keeping track of user access permissions, especially as employees move between departments. Managing multiple identities for each user across different systems is very time-consuming and often leads to errors. Struggle with unauthorized access attempts, and our current system doesn’t have strong enough controls to prevent this.”

Organisations use a mix of manual processes and outdated software to manage access, which is not very effective. Current systems lacks integration, making it difficult to enforce consistent security policies across all applications. Basic tools in place, but ensuring secure access, especially for remote workers, is a major challenge.”

Few organisations use MFA for some applications but not all. Implementing it across the board has it’s challenges. SSO is setup for a few key systems, but it doesn’t cover all the applications, leading to user frustration. Cloud applications are somewhat secured, but not all applications use the same level of security, and on-premises systems still rely on traditional passwords, which isn’t ideal.”

Organisations manually track privileged access, which is cumbersome and prone to errors. There’s no centralized system for monitoring privileged access, making it difficult to detect misuse promptly. They lack real-time monitoring tools, so often reacting to issues after they have occurred.

To comply with GDPR, keeping up with the requirements is challenging with the current systems. HIPAA compliance is crucial for few organisations dealing with healthcare, and managing access controls manually becomes unmanageable. They rely on periodic audits for compliance, but without automated tools, it’s hard to ensure ongoing adherence to standards like SOX.

Organisations have a hard time keeping track of all the IT assets and their relationships. The lack of visibility often leads to inefficiencies and unexpected issues. Managing dependencies between systems is complex and time-consuming. We often face downtime due to missed dependencies. Change management is chaotic without a streamlined process to manage and track changes across the IT landscape.

Many organisations rely on manual processes and spreadsheets for impact analysis, which is error-prone and slow. Also, use some basic tools, but they don’t provide a comprehensive view, making it difficult to understand the full impact of changes. Assessing the impact of changes is challenging. And, often miss critical dependencies and face issues post-implementation.”

There’s a disconnect between the IT initiatives and business objectives. Organisations struggle to show how their projects contribute to overall business goals. Various KPIs are used, but they are not always aligned with business objectives, making it hard to measure the true impact of IT initiatives. Tracking the success of IT projects is manual and often subjective. They lack a standardised process to measure business outcomes.

Documentation available is outdated and incomplete. It is challenging to keep it current due to frequent changes in the IT landscape. Irregularity in updates to the documentation leads to inconsistencies and gaps in information. Visibility is limited. There is some documentation, but it’s scattered across different systems and hard to maintain.

Collaboration is crucial, as there are issues with version control and ensuring everyone is on the same page. Communication barriers between IT and business stakeholders lead to misunderstandings and misaligned priorities. Engaging stakeholders is difficult. Often struggle is to get timely feedback and input, which delays decision-making.

Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) is the process of aligning an organization’s portfolio of projects, programs, and initiatives with its strategic objectives. It involves selecting, prioritizing, and managing these portfolios to achieve maximum value and support long-term business goals. SPM ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and that all projects are aligned with the company’s overall strategy.

While traditional project management focuses on the successful delivery of individual projects, SPM takes a broader view, managing a collection of projects as a portfolio to ensure alignment with strategic objectives. SPM prioritizes projects based on their strategic value and ensures that resources are allocated to initiatives that provide the greatest benefit to the organization.

The key components of SPM include portfolio governance, strategic alignment, resource management, risk management, and performance monitoring. These components work together to ensure that the portfolio is managed in a way that supports the organization’s strategic goals while balancing risks and optimizing resource utilization.

Governance in SPM involves establishing policies, procedures, and frameworks to guide the selection, prioritization, and management of portfolios. Effective governance ensures that decision-making is transparent, aligns with organizational strategy, and includes appropriate oversight to manage risks and achieve desired outcomes.

How does SPM help in resource allocation?

Budgeting process in many organisations is heavily manual, relying on spreadsheets. This makes it time-consuming and prone to errors. Data accuracy is a significant issue. Most often find discrepancies that take a lot of time to resolve. Collaboration during the budgeting process is challenging. Different departments use their own templates, and consolidating this information is a nightmare.

Need robust scenario planning tools to prepare for market fluctuations. Currently, the forecasts are too static. They perform scenario planning quarterly, but the current tools are not flexible enough to handle multiple variables and assumptions. Key factors in the forecasts include market trends, sales projections, and cost structures, but integrating these into the plans is challenging.

They use multiple systems for data entry, which leads to inconsistencies. Reconciling data from these systems is time-consuming. Integration process is very manual, and there’s a lot of room for error when consolidating data from different sources. Ensuring data consistency is a major challenge. They often find discrepancies that are hard to trace back to their source.

Collaboration is crucial, but face significant challenges with version control. Multiple versions of documents often lead to confusion.There are communication barriers between departments. Getting everyone on the same page is difficult without a centralised platform. They need better tools for collaborative planning. Right now, different teams work in silos, and integrating their input is a challenge.”