As a CFO, you are responsible for your company’s profitability margin. If the operating income margin noticeably declines, you must determine whether this decline is attributed to internal inefficiencies or external market factors. Traditionally, this analysis involves extensive, time-consuming, and error-prone manual work, including data extraction from various operational systems, manual calculations, and scouring available competitors’ financial reports.
Using Incorta Nexus, CFOs can leverage the platform’s ability to integrate and analyze structured and unstructured data in real-time. Watch our live demo below, or keep reading for our step-by-step breakdown.
- Initial Query on Operating Income Margin:
- The CFO asks a simple question about the operating income margin for the last two years.
- Incorta Nexus processes this query by scanning all relevant operational data and returning the required information. The trend is displayed in a clear, easy-to-understand chart.
- Adding to Dashboard:
- The CFO adds this chart to a dashboard with a single click, enabling easy access and ongoing monitoring of this key metric.
- The CFO adds this chart to a dashboard with a single click, enabling easy access and ongoing monitoring of this key metric.
- Competitor Analysis:
- The CFO asks about competitors’ operating income margins to determine if the margin decrease is due to market conditions.
- Incorta Nexus scours thousands of pages of competitors’ reports, including unstructured data such as PDFs and financial filings, to provide a comparative analysis.
- The results show that a competitor’s operating income margin decreased from 10% to 5%, suggesting a potential market-wide issue.
- Deep Dive into Competitor Data:
- Further investigation reveals the competitor’s margin decrease was due to a one-time $2 billion charge related to regulatory compliance issues.
- This insight is crucial – as it indicates that the competitor’s margin decrease is not due to internal operational inefficiencies.
- Internal Analysis:
- The CFO then focuses on the company’s data – specifically the cost of goods sold (COGS), gross margin, and other operating expenses.
- Incorta Nexus provides a detailed breakdown, revealing that the main issue is a significant increase in compensation costs – which rose from 24% to 31% of sales – overshadowing efficiency gains in materials and freight.
- Detailed Transaction-Level Insights:
- By querying further, the CFO can uncover that the increase in compensation costs was due to higher merit increases and unplanned hires.
- This level of detail is achieved without requiring manual data compilation, enabling the CFO to quickly pinpoint the root cause of margin compression.
With comprehensive insights provided instantly by Incorta Nexus, CFOs can confidently present the findings to the board, highlighting the cause of margin decrease and providing strategic insights – such as reviewing compensation policies and controlling hiring practices – to improve profitability margins.
- Time Savings: The entire analysis, which traditionally takes a week or more, is completed in hours.
- Accuracy and Detail: Access to transaction-level data ensures precise and actionable insights.
- Real-Time Analysis: The CFO can continuously monitor and analyze data, providing ongoing strategic input.
With Incorta Nexus, the possibilities are truly limitless. Customers not only unlock new levels of efficiency and agility but also fortify the foundation for future growth and innovation in future operational GenAI initiatives.