Tagetik and Microsoft Focus on the Added Value of Collaboration

MILAN, Italy, November 30, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --

- Joint Solution Enriches Financial, Operational Processes and Data Analysis With Advanced Business Communication and Collaboration Tools

Tagetik, a global provider of enterprise software solutions for Performance Management, Governance, Risk & Compliance and Business Intelligence, and Microsoft today hosted a round table discussion at Palazzo Mezzanotte, home of the Italian Stock Exchange. At this event, business and IT professionals had the opportunity to discuss with executives from both software vendors the importance of collaboration in performance management, corporate disclosure processes as well as Tagetik 3.0's tight integration with 'Microsoft Productivity' technologies.

"Collaboration plays such a crucial role in budgeting, consolidation, reporting and the financial close because it helps companies take control of these processes and not just measure results," explains Manuel Vellutini, Chief Operating Officer at Tagetik. "The main challenge for companies today is to involve the entire organization in managing and controlling business activities. By facilitating collaboration in performance measurement and management processes, they can effectively communicate goals to different operational teams throughout the organization (sales, marketing, production, internal audit, ...). As a result, all business areas can work together on joint activities and make more effective decisions - regardless if they are sitting in the same office or scattered throughout the world."

"Companies need easier ways to implement their strategies and streamline decision-making processes that involve multiple functions throughout the organization," adds Marco Mattei, Vice President for Advanced Applications at Tagetik. "Especially in the case of highly pervasive activities such as planning and budgeting at strategic, corporate and operational levels, it is essential today to adopt a proactive rather than a reactive approach."

The round table also discussed the importance of collaboration in financial reporting and corporate disclosures. Since producing and communicating financial information is often a centralized, highly manual process, most companies still lack adequate controls and worklows.

"The growing gap between structured, non-structured information and reports for internal and external stakeholders often leads to less accurate data, production delays, inconsistency and a higher risk of error," explains Vellutini. "The latest software release 'Tagetik 3.0 Collaborative Disclosure Management' (http://www.tagetik.it/software/disclose) targets financial statement production with XBRL tagging to create a highly collaborative, transparent disclosure process that can be used standalone or as part of our unified CPM suite. Since the system gathers financial data and individual footnotes from any consolidation and ERP systems and stores information in a single repository, users can track and approve the data more easily. As a result, they can quickly produce regulatory reports - such as the U.S. SEC reports -, IAS financial statements, annual reports, board books and other documents required either by regulatory bodies or internal policies, with full XBRL support."

Following the discussion, Tagetik and Microsoft also presented their joint solution for 'Collaborative Performance Management', Tagetik 3.0 Enabled by Microsoft(R) SharePoint(R) Server 2010 ( http://www.tagetik.com/software/bi). This platform offers unparalleled capabilities for improving teamwork and communication as well as searching and sharing information with business intelligence and performance management tools to better manage and analyze financial processes. In addition to SharePoint Server, it also provides a seamless integration with Microsoft Office, SQL Analysis Services and Reporting Services as well as Microsoft Dynamics(R) ERP and Microsoft Dynamics(R) CRM software solutions.

"Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 enriches the business processes and information in Tagetik 3.0 with Microsoft Dynamics data ( http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics)," adds Roberto Andreoli, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Manager at Microsoft Italy. "Through its native integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, for example, companies can easily roll out collaborative and analytical CRM capabilities in one fully integrated, easy-to-use platform. This makes it easier to manage structured and unstructured data in order to support sales, marketing and customer service management processes."

"The technology to drive 'collaborative performance management' is available today," concludes Vellutini. "Our job now is to show managers how collaboration and communication tools can effectively drive business performance for years to come."

About Tagetik

Tagetik delivers a unified software solution for Performance Management, Enterprise Governance, Risk & Compliance, and Disclosure Management with specialized Business Intelligence tools to optimize Collaboration and Communication.

Tagetik 3.0 creates value by simplifying complex business processes for CFOs and CIOs: budgeting, forecasting, cash flow planning, statutory and management consolidation, cost allocation, profitability analysis, financial close and fast closing, dashboard, scorecarding, collaborative disclosure management and compliance/industry requirements. Tagetik 3.0 is the solution to translate strategy into operations, manage and control overall performance down to business transactions, and improve decision-making across the whole organization while achieving faster ROI and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). Tagetik's vision to extend Performance Management and Business Intelligence to collaborative decision-making inspired us to develop Tagetik 3.0 Enabled by Microsoft SharePoint, moving CPM from Corporate to Collaborative Performance Management.

Tagetik operates in 18 countries leveraging a close partnership with Microsoft. Its market experts are totally committed to the success of 400 customers worldwide, including some of the largest Fortune 1000 companies representing all industry sectors, as well as to build strong relationships with system integrators, technology leaders and local consulting specialists.

    Tagetik is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. To learn more:
http://www.tagetik.com

    Corporate Press Contacts:
    Elisabetta Pierallini
    Luca Pieretti
    +39-0583-96811
    [email protected]

    US Press Contact:
    Alessandra Gamba
    +1-203-391-7520
    [email protected]

    UK Press Contact:
    Caroline Powell
    +44(0)20-8297-5388
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SOURCE Tagetik