NEUBRAINER, the official blog of Neubrain

Since early 2020, the world has been forced to quickly adapt to unprecedented circumstances presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Government organizations have been at the forefront of the crisis dealing with a plethora of issues. These include unanticipated costs incurred from the pandemic response, double-digit declines in tax revenue, consequences of eliminating or reducing services to citizens, and delaying critical infrastructure projects, which drastically impacted the communities they serve.

If you have ever worked in a governmental organization, you probably experienced the mental gymnastics of the dreaded “what-if” drills.  The annual bureaucratic budget review and approval processes, changing priorities based on political agendas, and emerging agency requirements make these drills a frequent occurrence at all levels of government.  Governmental organizations are often tasked to  “develop options”, “look for efficiencies”, or other code words to deal with real or perceived budget cuts.  These units are scrambling to play defense – to defend (or re-defend) planned resourcing levels. A reason why budgeting is so difficult is that many government organizations have difficulty tying resource allocation to objective criteria that clearly enables decision-makers to make conscious trade-offs, as well as providing transparency throughout the organization. 

High performing Comptroller organizations can add tremendous organizational value beyond just financial transaction processing and audit readiness tasks.

By leading in the establishment of key processes, promoting enterprise-wide collaboration and a disciplined financial management culture, they can drastically improve the ability of an organization to achieve performance targets, strengthen the link between financial plans and strategic objectives, and enhance strategic decision-making.

After years of experience observing common budget soft­ware buying processes, it has become clear that organiza­tions often jump into the buying process and review soft­ware vendor offerings without being properly prepared for the task.

As technologies advance, the global marketplace changes, and the economy ebbs and flows, it is apparent that traditional budgeting practices are becoming a relic of the past. With the right strategies and technologies in place, public sector organizations can develop a more strategic budget process...

CURRENT CHALLENGES

As economy ebbs and flows, global marketplace expands, and technologies advance, many government organizations are pursuing aggressive efforts to restructure budgets in order to reduce spending and better align resources with strategic priorities and outcomes. 

The new requirement is not just a onetime effort, but rather a systematic practice. Organizations are required to implement new systems and capabilities, and to monitor costs, analyze performance, identify savings (where possible) and re-evaluate approaches in a flexible, rapid, and effective manner. 

In keeping with Neubrain Holiday tradition, here is another gift of visualization best practice.