Mining companies have little control over the demand for, supply of, and pricing of their product. Even more so over the last few years, the level of uncertainty has increased significantly, and there is always a degree of risk due to constant changes in global mining policies. Because of this, there is clear opportunity for mining companies to add value to their businesses by having the ability to react quickly to market changes. Even in situations with a robust underlying demand, having the ability to improve productivity, efficiency and profit margin can be the difference between attractin ..read more

As a Finance Professional, at some point in your career you will be part of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation. Those that have experienced one will tell you that it will be expensive, and time consuming, and possibly stressful, but if it’s done right it can be very transformative, and deliver significant value to your business through the improvements in your data and processes. Very often the upgrade of an ERP system forms part of a bigger digital transformation project, where the other significant component is the implementation of an EPM (Enterprise Performance Managemen ..read more

In today’s complex global economy, transport and logistics are playing an ever-increasing role, and optimising this process is the key to success for business. In this blog we will highlight the importance of business intelligence in the logistics industry. Improved technology has increased productivity in the supply chain and minimised costs and errors. Thanks to business intelligence tools, companies are no longer swamped with large amounts of data they don’t know what to do with. Instead, logistics managers are using BI technologies to find real meaning in their ocean of numbers—and take a ..read more

Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) which is an important function within the Finance area, is responsible for providing the organisation with the insights they need to make operational, financial, and strategic decisions. Specifically, the main objective of FP&A is to transform the company’s business performance using digital, data and analytics. However, one key component that acts as a backbone for FP&A performance is the Key Performance Indicator (KPI). What exactly is a KPI?  Why are the KPIs an important component in FP&A? What can o ..read more

Executives need access to the latest business insights to make effective strategic, financial, and operational decisions. This becomes increasingly difficult to achieve as organisational data silos grow and make it harder to collate accurate data for enterprise reporting. Combine this with competitive, fast-paced markets and the need for constant innovation, and the decision-making process becomes a time-pressured minefield that puts undue stress on senior managers. Despite this challenge, many management tea ..read more

October 2020 A new way to budget and forecast for shift based employees Over the last few years we have been working with a number of Aged/Disability care organisations to improve their budgeting and forecasting processes specifically around staff costs which is many cases accounts for 70-80% of total expenses. There are many roster tools available in the market however they are mainly focussed on coverage rather than cost and having the ability to compare costs with funding and make adjustments to suit is vital.    The importance of having an efficient and effective budget process ..read more

We have talked about the importance of data and data integration in many of our recent blogs, however we have never really discussed how we do it, so we thought it was about time we did. Over the last few years, we have been working on a project for one of our mining services clients which involves integrating data from a number of different sources (Excel spreadsheets, Cloud and On-premise applications, Machine/Vehicle Sensor Data etc.) into a centralised data warehouse which is then used for invoicing, budgeting, forecasting, reporting and analytics. On this project we worked together with ..read more

Why should your organisation unify planning and analytics and why doesn’t everybody do it? Many organisations today still use spreadsheets or specialised legacy systems for budgeting and planning; however, these systems were never designed for analytics or reporting. Those same organisations, if they are using analytics at all, are often relying on their IT to support stand-alone BI solutions. Today, planning and analytics tools are playing an increasingly critical role in transforming the way organisations gather, store, analyse and interpret data for strategic business decision making. In t ..read more

Many Australia mining companies have evolved through exploration discoveries, purchase of brownfield operations, rebirth of old operations and the takeovers of ailing operations whose fortunes have fluctuated with the ebbs and flows of their commodity prices. A consequence of this is that for these companies, data gathering technologies have not evolved with the business, and in most case are limited to spreadsheets and stand-alone software packages that require many hours of manual manipulation of information to produce meaningful reports. Coupled with poor control and storage of historical ..read more

  The disruption of business models through the advancement of digital technology has been a reality for other industries for many years. The digital transformation is now impacting the mining industry. From day-to-day data management to the prevention of bottlenecks and inefficiency, information technology is transforming the way the mining industry operates. Increasing demands for efficient production and worker safety are requiring traditional mining companies to embrace innovation and implement information technology to ensure advanced manufacturing and competitiveness throughout the ..read more