When Oracle discontinued its Discover reporting tool, it left companies scrambling to find an alternative. Regardless of the strengths or weaknesses of Discover, many users relied on it as their primary reporting solution. In its absence, there was no way to access...

As a heavyweight in the world on enterprise software, Oracle makes a lot of companies scramble whenever it decides to stop supporting one of its core products. Such is the case with Discoverer, one of the primary reporting tools in the Oracle ecosystem. Support for...

When Shakespeare warned that "past is prologue," he was pointing to the fact that we can't understand the present or the future without understanding what came before it. This advice is important for finance professionals now that so much emphasis is placed on...

Performance either fuels or inhibits growth. That's important to keep in mind in the context of a recent Gartner survey showing that growth is the top business priority for CEOs in 2019 and 2020. The economy is booming and opportunities abound, so now seems like an...

Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) is a new version of an old concept. Companies have always tried to track their performance in order to recognize opportunities and liabilities proactively. However, they were restricted by a lack of information and underpowered...

Jack McCullough is the founder of the CFO Leadership Council, a professional organization for senior financial leaders. McCullough is a widely-respected public speaker and thought leader who consults with some of today's preeminent financial executives and innovators....

Financial ratios are one of the best resources in your performance management toolkit. Tracking various KPIs helps decision makers understand their strengths and weaknesses in depth. However, focusing on the relationship between various metrics improves understanding...

Reporting is considered a necessary evil by a lot of people. Without clear, accurate, and comprehensive reports, there is no way to know how your company is performing. Yet the amount of time, input, and resources that reporting requires means it can drag down...