The larger your enterprise grows the more controls you will need to have in place for your month and year end close process. I have observed many an accounting manager put together very detailed spreadsheets and pass them around the organization to bring order to the month end close process. Don’t roll your eyes back in your head. This is a necessary and important process in any business. It gives us the “actual” information we need to move the company forward and make informed decisions.

The reason many accounting managers fail with the spreadsheet approach is simple. Most of the knowledge workers using the spreadsheets have created their own custom copy. We have seen clients institute daily close coordination calls and email blasts trying to wrestle control into this monthly task. This process can get ugly especially when companies have many non-integrated systems. Most managers would tell us they have close plan not really a process.

Using a portal can ensure adherence to the plan or process. Mapping the close process and sequencing the activities, timing and the people responsible can successfully reduce redundant steps. When interdependent steps are coordinated and alerts are sent out from the portal, the workflow gets smoother and more in control. The time to close shortens. Issues that get in the way of smooth workflow stick out and accounting managers have to opportunity to meet with the close team to permanently resolve the issues. The result from that meeting is the portal close process gets modified for the subsequent month and we begin to improve more rapidly. Reopening a past period becomes non-existent and auditing becomes easier and is believable.

Sounds too easy doesn’t it? Well, you will have to manage the initial change with the close team. They will want to resist moving out of their comfort zone and give up using their highly customized spreadsheets. If you use them to help define the new process they will be more open to using the new portal based process. Once they embrace the change and see the results you won’t be able to get them to go back to the old way of closing the books.

Many hands (coordinated) make little work.

Rick Kiehle the Portal Guy

For good or for ill, promotions are a way of life in c-stores. Are you maximizing the performance of your promotions? We’ve talked about this issue in this blog before but I just saw this recent report on “Retail Wire” (http://www.retailwire.com/) put out by DemandTec®. And while the report is not aimed necessarily at the convenience channel, the principles certainly apply. 
It’s worth your time to download the full report and review it but here are some highlights.

Best Practices in Promotion Planning and Execution

1. First, Focus on the Customer: Focus less on individual media plans and zero in on the best ways to message to customer groups across all media types and channels.

2. Simplify and Shorten the Process Through Integration: For example, price revisions are entered once and then flow to the creative people and directly through to the store without having to rekey or conduct multiple proof cycles.

3. Improve Decision Making with Better In-Process Analytics: The third best practice is to adopt an infrastructure that supports better decision making with access to analytics directly within the planning tool.

4. Centrally Manage Content: Major process improvements depend on managing all the promotional content in one location. This eliminates redundant data entry and provides the foundation necessary to achieve zero-defect production.

5. Maintain a Shared, Collaborative Environment: with common underlying systems, across all the departments responsible for collaborating in the promotional process.

6. Set ROI Goals and Measure Results: This tracking allows retailers to improve performance and to accurately calculate and review the ROI.

Your holiday promotional calendar is surely set by now but it’s never too late to institute best practices. Download the report at: http://info.demandtec.com/20101010PromotionEfficiency_a.html 

Casey McKenzie
Senior Partnering Consultant