MSPAlliance - Monday, April 17, 2006 - Businesses have struggled with the IT implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, requiring and enforcing regulatory transparency on the way data is collected and stored on corporate finance systems. For public companies, the data requiring transparency is often collected with some difficulty, then warehoused and forgotten until the next cycle.
But the organized collection of key financial data can drive business growth and corporate success - if the available tools are utilized properly. Many software vendors, including Oracle and SAP, offer data analysis tools that process data for redundant control points, saving time, energy and money by automating the analytical process. IT data can be manipulated with these tools so that new business strategies can be uncovered that would have been lost in the collection process. These tools also standardize risk analysis and methodology company-wide, enabling IT to provide operational excellence for the company in several ways.
By finding new efficiencies and analyzing the right approaches to risk, internal data can be a key to hidden business success. The future value of business analytics positions IT as a strategic asset for all companies in the coming years.
