Analysis: The rise of financial analytics

Being able to relay financial data to board members and investors is now, following the recession, as important as it ever has been.

The economic crisis saw many falling by the wayside and companies had to learn fast about the risks of being unprepared.

Now, increasing numbers of businesses are looking to analytics tools to understand where their money is going and to prepare themselves for any shocks in the future.

Growing in and out of the recession

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However, analytics has not just seen a rise in popularity because of the downturn, even though it highlighted the value of such tech.

The segment is something that IT PRO.

"Information has become more of a strategic asset and the way you can use that information to get business value or an economic advantage over another company is going to become increasingly important."

He added: "The more we can empower people with the information the better they can take a better business decision."

SAP, with its analytics services, is trying to help customers make "less gut-based decisions, more fact-based decisions", according to Hirst.

Rather than leaving it to chance, using analytics tools can provide firms with hard knowledge so they are prepared for any catastrophes in the future.

Time on your hands

He added: "That strategy required the business to do different things and measure in different ways and what we had in place couldn't do it."

In a somewhat fortuitous turn of events, the new analytics strategy came before the crisis hit, but it still helped Logica get through the turbulent time of the financial meltdown. As a result, it was already prepared well before the chaos took hold.

Using a mix of Cognos 8, Cognos TM1 and Cognos Controller from IBM, Logica found that it was able to cut down by a week the time it took between closing its books and talking to the city about the data the firm had. The organisation took the spare time from this and reinvested it back into the business on other value-added tasks, Cano explained.