Press Release - Group Reporting Results
REAL TIME FINANCIAL REPORTING WON’T HAPPEN WITHOUT DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT
…Hyperion and Paragon Consulting point to lack of BPM adoption as major barrier to financial reporting reform…
Recent proposals for real time financial reporting from the Big 6 accounting firms Note 1 are unlikely to succeed without the wider adoption of business performance management (BPM) approaches by European corporations according to Hyperion, the global leader in BPM software and leading BPM consultancy Paragon Consulting Group.
According to David Jones, Director of Paragon Consulting: “Although we are very supportive of the proposals of the Big 6, the reporting regime needs changing. It is an onerous and growing burden, consuming ever-larger amounts of resource in our clients. There is overwhelming evidence that this reporting fails the needs of the majority of investors. However, the effort, time and cost to make this change will be significant; our recent research Note 2 into reporting processes at 133 large European multinationals shows just how big a challenge is faced. And how far the proposed new regime of real time reporting is from current reality.”
According to the research carried out during the first half of 2006 by Paragon Consulting Group/BPM International with the Head Office group reporting functions of 133 large European corporations and into the close cycles of over 500 of the world’s largest companies:
• 75% of large European Corporations take over 11 elapsed days at the end of each month to globally consolidate and report financial performance information;
• only 5% currently achieve this task in 3 days or less;
• Less than 40% of these corporations are regularly reporting key non-financial KPI’s and economic value added measures;
• Only 30% have integrated global transaction and reporting systems but this alone does not guarantee fast and effective information delivery;
• Annual year end results announcement to the markets for Europe ’s largest 390 companies take an average of 58 elapsed days and only 33% of these are audited at the time of announcement Note 3
Continues Jones: “To support and sustain the Big 6 vision for a new regulatory reporting regime, corporations themselves must move to an integrated BPM environment based on integrated KPI’s, a more forward looking orientation on data, significantly faster reporting of key actual financial data and a less vice-like dependency on traditional financial measures. But the move to introduce these processes and the new integrated reporting solutions to sustain them is only just gathering pace with many hundreds of large European corporations having not even started their move to introduce BPM.”
Says Hyperion Managing Director Mark Wilkinson : “We concur with the findings of the BPM International Surveys. In order to meet the Big 6 proposals, businesses need to improve their approach to performance management and implement integrated BPM solutions such as Hyperion’s System 9. The Big 6 themselves need to encourage the implementation of best practice in current reporting processes and systems and the introduction of the BPM approach to performance management with their clients, while working to lighten the burden of the current regulatory regimes. This has to happen if there is to be any chance of introducing the kind of reporting regime proposed”.
About Paragon Consulting Group
Paragon is a leading provider of full life cycle services for Business Performance Management (BPM). Paragon’s services range from defining a Performance Management Roadmap through to project management, implementation and application management services. The depth and focus of Paragon’s BPM application skills are unparalleled and are supplemented with finance, information technology, business and process skills.
About BPM International
BPM International is Europe’s only integrated Business Performance Management (BPM) consulting network. BPM is an umbrella term that describes all of the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems needed to measure and manage an organizations performance. The BPM International members are five leading BPM consultancies with operations in seven European countries and over 1,400 consultants, working with many diverse companies across multiple industries including some of Europe’s largest multinational corporations. The members of BPM International are: Paragon Consulting Group (UK), Centre Consulting (Netherlands), ifb group (Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg, China), ValorGest (Portugal) and infineo (France).
About Hyperion
Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq Global Select: HYSL) is the global leader in Business Performance Management software. More than 12,000 customers in 90 countries rely on Hyperion both for insight into current business performance and to drive performance improvement. With Hyperion software, businesses collect, analyze and share data across the organization, linking strategies to plans and monitoring execution against goals. Hyperion integrates financial management applications with a business intelligence platform into a single management system for the global enterprise. For more information, visit www.hyperion.com
Safe Harbor Statement
Statements in this press release other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements concerning anticipated product offerings and the potential market opportunities for business performance management software. Such statements constitute anticipated outcomes and do not assure results. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to the company's ability to retain and attract key employees, the successful and timely development of new products, the impact of competitive products and pricing, customer demand, and technological shifts. For a more detailed discussion of factors that could affect the company's performance and cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, interested parties should review the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Report on Form 10-K filed on September 1, 2006. The company does not undertake an obligation to update its forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. “Hyperion” and Hyperion’s product names are trademarks of Hyperion. References to other companies and their products use trademarks owned by the respective companies and are for reference purpose only.
Note 1: “Global Capital Markets and the Global Economy: A vision from the CEO’s of the International Audit Networks” November 2006.
Note 2: Taken from BPM International Study: “Consolidation, Reporting and Planning Functions in European Multinational Enterprises”. November 2006. Available at www.bpm-international/survey.
Note 3: Taken from BPM International Research: “Close Cycle Rankings 2006” June 2006. Available at www.bpm-international/rankings