Star Analytics extends finance systems automation to mobile devices

The new version dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of managing corporate finance systems by centralizing access, control and maintenance of finance processes and data.

Finance process management has become a priority for the office of the CFO as finance systems mature and hybrid enterprise performance management (EPM) and business intelligence (BI) environments become more pervasive. Multi-vendor systems are costly and resource intensive to manage because they require manual intervention to integrate large volumes of data and control unpredictable processes.

"Intuitive dashboards, lights-out automation, and impenetrable security are the hallmark of the next generation of finance systems that help customers harness data and make decisions without being tethered to their desks or to a single application vendor," said Tom Tortolani, vice president, products, Star Analytics. "Our momentum and enterprise customer wins signal that the Star Finance Command Center is the best choice for reliable financial planning and close processes."

A New Era in Finance System Automation

Star Analytics developed the Star Finance Command Center 2.0 in collaboration with enterprise customers that need to manage disparate planning, analysis, reporting and consolidation environments with applications, data warehouses and business intelligence tools from multiple vendors.

McKesson and a global investment firm are the latest in a growing number of customers to realize the benefits of the Star Finance Command Center.

The first end-to-end finance platform:

-- Ensures predictable and reliable continuous planning and financial close processes
-- Powers fast, timely and accurate reporting
-- Allows finance professionals to spend more time on analysis and planning and less time managing data and processes
-- Helps finance do more with limited resources

Features include:

-- Smartphones and web - and web - Distributed business users and system administrators can monitor and run finance automations using iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and other web browsers.
-- Email alerts - Real-time notification of automation process status determines root cause of finance system issues.
-- Support for Oracle Fusion middleware and BPEL processes - Intertwines application and business processes for end-to-end business process automation.
-- High availability server option - Provides high availability management of the automation environment for the most demanding finance systems needs.
-- Enhanced support for UNIX environments, including IBM AIX - A Complete open, multi-platform solution.
-- Extended support for Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Oracle Essbase - Eliminates code and provides end-to-end automation across Oracle Hyperion environments.

Partner Success

Customers are accelerating their success with value-added services and expertise from Star Analytics partners. interRel Consulting, US-Analytics and a growing community of systems integrators and consulting firms are incorporating Star Analytics technology into their EPM, BI and data warehousing offerings.

"I accessed the new Star Analytics Finance Command Center on my iPhone, and in a matter of minutes I was showing our customers how they could manage all their finance processes from the palm of their hands," said Edward Roske, CEO at interRel Consulting and an ACE Director for Oracle. Star Analytics has really removed the major cost and time hurdles in finance organizations that want to patch together scheduling tools, scripting languages and automations across their EPM implementations. Finance process management? Yes, there's finally an app for that."

"As we see our clients continuing to adopt mature Financial Governance strategies, the value and importance of the Star Finance Command Center for these global companies is not an option, but an imperative," said Jon Rambeau, managing director of US-Analytics.