Page 10 - The Pakistan Accountant

C O VER ST OR Y year out of balance. Too often, these procedures are performed in a top- down way with no tying-in of the strategic goals to the implementation steps. It is quite normal for the employee to lose focus and direction when they can’t visualize exactly how they are contributing to the company’s high level goals. Whether it be an annual or a quarterly exercise, strong guidelines for planning and execution of the procedures goes a long way to ensure that you retain sufficient control over where and how operations needs to focus on during the period to meet the business goals. Outdated Systems and Technology Putting off investments in new IT infrastructure may save money in the short term, but sticking with older technology may hurt a company’s Absence of Granular Information credibility with employees and customers. Usually As we know that information in raw form of data is not performance management systems and spreadsheet- knowledge but is the first necessary phase towards based processes engage managers in endless detail and intelligence. Sometimes organization’s financial systems consume more of their time trying to shuffle between crunch revenues and costs into kinds that work well for systems and sheets and integrate the output of multiple the company’s financial reporting but are not granular systems. Managers spend most of the time (80%) getting enough for competent operations management. the systems to work and the remaining time (20%) Unawareness in employees about tasks is a big barrier on actually executing on the information. Companies to do any kind of accurate performance management. should get their technology updated to best support Conflict in information leads to incorrect planning and it their business objectives as it is a good investment and arise due to various data sources and non-transparency worth every penny in the long run – as it frees up the in information sharing. For any successful plan, annual resources to spend more time on analysis and execution. data and knowledge management strategy is a must that depends on trends and analysis. These major barriers as concluded are not the sole ones that cannot be overcome with a little focus and a lot of Lack of commitment from the Senior effort. Smart employees support with the right tools, Management realistic planning, and the desire to catalyze positive Except the others, this one part needs full support change across the organization, it is possible to make from the senior management in terms of consistency significant developments to accelerate the journey in direction setting and the will to enforce the much towards operational excellence. needed discipline. The tasks that are commonly not well-aligned to the overall business goals – for example, sales runs after revenue growth and does not care about profitable growth, finance pushes for bottom-line at the cost of top line improvement, delivery gives meeting milestones priority over costs. Business primacies need to be powerful, strong and steady throughout the organization to create a culture where responsibility for performance is pervasive, accountable, and aligned. Poor Planning for Success Improper procedure for the basic building blocks of planning, budgeting and forecasting, made the entire 8 The Pakistan Accountant | Apr-Jun 2014