The use of blogs within today's organizations is becoming increasingly widespread. Today, many large firms use blogs to communicate with existing and potential customers as well as employees and others in order to improve the quality of their products and services. An example of a highly successful and very well-known business using blogs is Starbucks. In addition to having blogs where customers are asked for their opinion and feedback on the company's products, Starbucks has created"My Starbucks Idea" on its' official website in order to get its clients involved by asking their input for new product ideas. Moreover, this website which is formatted as a blog enables Starbucks customers all around the world to share potential new product ideas, view suggested ideas by others as well as vote for and discuss existing ideas. Therefore, the use of blogs in an organizational context such as that of Starbucks has many advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include the long term health and safety of consumers as they are better informed, stronger customer relationships and brand loyalty, sharing knowledge and ideas within the organization, getting customer and employee feedback, and last but not least getting to know the customers better by allowing them to build a profile. Conversely, the disadvantages of using blogs in organizations consist of: individuals' inability to clearly express their ideas, the time-consuming nature of blogs which prevents individuals with good ideas and little time to post those ideas, difficulty of maintaining the blog and finally the disorganized and multi-tone nature of blogs which may create a negative image of the organization.
References:
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_08_23_blogging.htm
http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
Monday, April 6, 2009
Impacts of the Use of the Software on the Organization
The use of Hyperion Financial Management has many benefits for financial organizations. Increasing efficiency and speed are among the top positive impacts that the use of the software has on organizations and their business processes. Hyperion Financial Management accelerates reporting cycles by cutting the latter by days and thus distributing more accurate results and information to professionals. It also helps improve transparency and reduce the costs of compliance with stringent reporting policies. Hyperion allows finance professionals to spend more time on high quality analysis and decision-making while spending less time on processing. The software is also compatible with existing system softwares and can therefore be easily integrated into organizations' infrastucture. Finally, one of Hyperion Financial Management's primary and well-known benefits is its' promise to "deliver a single version of the truth" in order to support financial managers and decision-makers. Nevertheless, Hyperion Financial Management is lacking an accounting utility which most other software of its' type have and this in turn makes it a slower and more costly software. Furthermore, Hyperion Financial Management is a very effective application software and is easily compatible with many existing transaction systems and could in addition be combined with other Oracle products and/or existing non-Oracle software. It is therefore evident that Hyperion Financial Management has more positive impacts on organizations than negative ones.
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Sunday, April 5, 2009
Technical & Training Requirements for using the Software
Hyperion Financial Management is a Web-based software application launched by Oracle and is used widely by the Finance department of large organizations. This software is compatible with many existing transaction systems and data warehouses. The technical requirements include speed and power as well as a big amount of RAM therefore more powerful and high technology computers. In order to be able to make use of and effectively function Hyperion Financial Management, users and business professionals need special training as it is a highly sophisticated and complex software. Oracle offers its Hyperion Financial Management and other application software users' training courses which are offered by Oracle University all around the globe. There are various levels of training each familiarizing users with the necessary technical and theoretical concepts in order to effectively and efficiently make use of this software product. These include basic courses, certifications and training by job role. In addition, users of the software are expected to be familiar with and have minimal experience with certain financial applications and concepts used by this system.
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Software Users within Organizations
Hyperion Financial Management is primarily used and maintained by organizations' finance team including finance executives and top management as well as financial analysts and reporters. The key features of this advanced software are global consolidation, scalable web architecture, smart dimensionality, complete audit trails, powerful reporting and analysis tools, and last but not least robust data integration (http://www.whitehouse-consult.co.uk/files/hyperion-financial-management-datasheet.pdf). Hyperion Financial Management eases finance executives' overwhelming task of consolidation and reporting of financial results using intricate spreadsheets. This Oracle performance management application helps diminish internal control risks and converts the role of financial managers from that of a scorekeeper to a business partner who carry crucial information needed for decision making at the operational level. In addition, due to it's focus on one major business process which is that of consolidation and reporting, Hyperion Financial Management is able to offer its' users quality performance and assurance. Yet another distinguishing characteristic of this Oracle software is that it is maintained by the finance experts themselves rather than IT specialists. This therefore lowers the firm's expenses and allows it to invest those funds in other functional and useful areas of the organization. Furthermore, Hyperion Financial Management allows the rapid and efficient process of consolidation and reporting while companies conform to the inflexible reporting regulations of the industry.
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Introduction of the Software
Hyperion Financial Management is a Web-based application software introduced and offered by Oracle which is recognized as "the world's largest business software company with more than 320,000 customers in over 145 countries around the globe". Oracle has been a leader in the software industry for over 30 years and has instigated many new product concepts. Today, the company continues its leadership and success as it spent US $2.7 billion in research and development costs which represented 12 percent of its total revenue for fiscal year 2008. This software which enables the consolidation and reporting of financial data in order to improve the quality and efficiency of financial information and facilitates financial managers' tasks by replacing highly complex spreadsheets and ledgers is widely used by financial organizations and/or the finance department within various firms. It is however more often used by the finance team and executives of the organization who are the primary users of the specialized software. Hyperion Financial Management is rather used by large organizations. However, medium and small-sized firms can also deploy the software application in their system. This ingenious software was launched in 2000 and has therefore been the market leader for nearly a decade now by using technology and innovation and thus assisting financial decision makers whose tasks are further simplified.
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