Banking

For your Department: Finance

Of all the various roles Finance can play in a bank, the two most necessary to balance are complying with legal, tax, and regulatory requirements and dispensing sound advice on the efficient allocation of resources. In the first, Finance must focus on regulatory standards, checks, and controls. In the second, Finance must lend expertise in understanding what resources are required to generate which types of assets, liabilities, and fee income. It is uniquely positioned to play this second role because, while most commercial functions push as far as they can in a single direction, Finance must evaluate the bank's contrasting realities.

Barriers to better financial performance management can include:

• Lack of information needed to regulate what has happened and shape what will happen
• The relevance, visibility, and credibility of what you measure and analyze is designed for accounting rather than business management
• Finance must balance short term and long term, detailed focus and the big picture
• Finance must find the path between top-down vision and bottom-up circumstances.

The information Finance uses to report what has happened and shape what will happen is critical to the rest of the organization. Dynamic tools that allow Finance to balance compliance and performance, accounting and business structures, short term and long term, top-down vision and bottom-up reality, are more important than ever. Information sweet spots can support Finance's responsibilities and decision areas. The Performance Manager for Banking book will show you ways Cognos, an IBM company, can help in decision areas such as:

• Balance sheet: How do we balance and structure the financial funding options, resources, and risks of the business?
• Income statement: How did the business team score? Where was performance strong or weak?
• Drill-down variance: What causes changes in financial performance?
• Operational plan variance: How do we best support, coordinate, and manage the delivery of meaningful plans?
• Cash balances: How do we manage the cash proof and monitor cash use effectively?
• Capital expenditure (CapEx) and strategic investments: What are the investment priorities and why?
• Treasury: How can we efficiently manage cash, liquidity requirements and cost of capital?

Download the Finance chapter
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The Performance Manager is just one way Cognos is helping Finance use technology to gain significant competitive advantage. Additional resources include:

• Planning in Financial Services: Find out the technology and best practices for effective budgeting, forecasting, planning, and reporting.


• Driving Performance with Enterprise Planning: Find out about the role planning plays in performance management, some of the inhibitors to enterprise success, and steps to creating a best-in-class process.


• Leveraging the Foundations of Wisdom: The Financial Impact of Business Analytics: Read what IDC had to say about the significant and rapid return on investment organizations that implement analytical applications can experience.


• Four Simple Steps to Improve Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting: Discover how easy it is to move from spreadsheets to an automated planning process.

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