Recent TRG blog posts

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute provides its patients with a unique disease centerbased model of cancer care and services. During the past decade, its patient volume has grown extensively, creating a need for additional facility space. Upon completion of the 14-story, 275,000-square-foot Yawkey Center for Cancer Care, Dana-Farber will be on track to expand its building complex to accommodate growing clinical volume.

It's that time of year again. Review the actuals, add 4%, and look at it bottoms-up, top-down, and in regard to operations vs. capital spend. Build some assumptions, work in a few numbers, consider what a reorg would do, and run some "what if" models. That's right, annual planning is upon us!

Corporations spend too much time budgeting and not enough time planning. As you kick off the budget season, you should be thinking about how to derive more business value from the process.

A Framework for Investment Decisions. Realizing an appropriate return on capital spending is critical. Poor allocation of strategic funds can impair the competitiveness and profitability of a corporation, which is why well-run organizations have a disciplined methodology for making these decisions.

Considerations when investing in IT infrastructure. In terms of IT infrastructure, it will come to a point where in-house data centers are not able to keep up with growth. Businesses will then face a tough decision regarding modernization. An array of factors should be taken into consideration, such as costs, resources, security and more.

To assist in delivering improved overall business performance, CFOs have reasserted their role as owners of both financial and management information and processes. A corporation with the right processes in place is able to turn its attention to added value finance: evaluating strategies, assessing how to drive top line growth, improve the bottom line, and using assets more effectively. Most management processes are linked to each other in one way or another. Budgeting and planning, for instance, are intrinsically intertwined with other financial processes like consolidation, reporting, risk management and analysis. These processes, in turn, provide critical insight for managing risk, steering corporate performance and shareholder value, as well as making strategic decisions.

"We don't have to spend a lot of time training users on a new system." —MS. WONG WOON CHUN, MANAGER, MANAGEMENT SERVICES DEPARTMENT, SINGAPORE PETROLEUM COMPANY LIMITED.