ClusterSeven (London and New York), an international provider of Enterprise Spreadsheet Management solutions that enhance risk management, compliance and business efficiency for financial institutions and Fortune 500 financial reporting divisions, today announced that its flagship Enterprise Spreadsheet Manager had been approved as a Global IBM Solution following integration and certification completed by a mutual partner, Assimil8.
The average CFO department routinely aggregates information from across multiple systems for budgeting and reporting. Spreadsheets are the tool of choice, even when more contemporary and reliable solutions are available. While spreadsheets are fast and flexible for the user, they increase the risk of error for the business and consume valuable time.
The ClusterSeven solution allows IBM Cognos® users to solve spreadsheet risk exposure by addressing all parts of the spreadsheet lifecycle. This starts with discovery and risk assessment of the organization's spreadsheet inventory, enabling targeted training and replacement. For those spreadsheets that will remain in the business, ClusterSeven provides an automated version and cell-level change control, with irregular activity reported directly to IBM Cognos® dashboards. In addition, critical data trends buried in historical spreadsheet versions can now be viewed alongside all other business intelligence.
"Distributed data in spreadsheets is a major business and IT headache," said Karl Mullins, CEO of Assimil8, an IBM Business Partner. "By integrating ClusterSeven, IBM Cognos® users can accelerate replacement or plan for their control."
"The integration provides a data viewing and reporting framework between our database and IBM Cognos allowing users to enjoy the benefits of spreadsheets while getting the transparency they need for replacement by more robust systems," said Ralph Baxter, CEO of ClusterSeven. "By that time, more spreadsheets will have emerged for us to manage."