FinAce - financial integrators

E-finance

The E-finance concept imbeds the Internet revolution further into a company’s infrastructure by transforming the financial functions operations.

Why is there a need for E-finance?

Managers are now more than familiar with the operational benefits of E-commerce and the potential new revenue streams that it derives. Marketing, logistics and procurement departments have all reinvented the processes and speed by which they operate and communicate. Taking E-thinking deeper into the organisation, the financial function now has the opportunity to transform itself from a retrospective reporter at the end of the sales chain to a cutting edge information provider, positioned at the strategic fulcrum of company operations.

Positioning finance at the front, rather than the end of the sales chain will further enhance E-commerce activity, exploiting further its significant advantages. E-finance allows costs to be substantially reduced through elimination of transaction processing while the embedding of financial controls into systems eliminates manual audit checks and mundane back office tasks. The potential of real time analytical data will allow strategic and operational decision makers to rapidly respond to changing conditions and allow stronger negotiations with suppliers.

The E-finance concept will transform a financial functions role from being the reactive gatekeeper and reporter of information into a proactive strategic operator that adds real value to the departments it supports.

How can this concept be achieved?

Many organisations are looking at ways of making a step change in their financial functions efficiency and service quality. Swanson & James’ E-finance concept is driven by the need to improve efficiency, by introducing new technology designed to enhance the smooth-running and automation of processes. Swanson & James looks to offer:

	Expert consultancy to identify the right solution;
	High level understanding to integrate back office systems;
	Full training and support for users of systems and software;
	E-commerce solutions to integrate technology into the core of processes.

Within the areas of E-business Swanson & James offers a full range of services across Intranet, Internet and Extranets, tailored to meet the needs of customers in both the private and public sectors. Swanson & James seeks to provide a structured approach, comprising some or all of the Consultancy, Design, Implementation and Operation disciplines which will:

	Improve the utilisation of information;
	Improve cost visibility and control;
	Provide better asset and resource management;
	Enable reduction in the duplication of effort;
	Improve the understanding of the organisation;
	Build partnerships within and outside the organisation;

Swanson & James’ services include:

Applicability and Planning

	E-Review – We facilitate a client’s thinking on the future of E-Services within their organisation. This will be achieved through the use of workshops and focus groups with key individuals and teams, pushing the boundaries of current thinking.
	E-Evaluate - Through a series of people, process and technology audits we establish a baseline of current readiness. We highlight areas of exceptional performance, areas for improvement and profile the risks your organisation faces.
	E-Plan - Once you have developed a vision for E-Services, we work with you to develop a high level Strategy. We help you to match the potential of new technologies from our hardware, software and netware strategic partners with your vision by creating a planned and progressive strategy that enables you to achieve your objectives.

Operational Implementation

The true value of Swanson & James’ E-finance concept derives from our implementation style. The most common complaint about consultancies in high-technology implementation is their lack of understanding of client problems and little transfer of knowledge to client staff. Addressing this forms the cornerstone principle in our proposition. We aim to exceed every individual client requirement and present technical issues to you in a simple yet comprehensive manner. To facilitate this we believe in working with clients employees 'on the ground' to ensure that changes are swiftly operational and understood to deliver the required savings and efficiencies. We achieve this through:

	Business Analysis - Having developed an E-Strategy we formulate the system and process requirements. This allows us to develop specifications for functional and technical requirements providing a baseline for systems development.
	Systems Development, Web Design, Systems Integration - We undertake a process of continually improving the development and delivery of E-applications and infrastructure. This includes systems development, detailed web design and subsequent systems integration.
	Implementation of Enabling Systems - Finally we rigorously test our implementation to ensure that the system meets all functional requirements and performs as expected.