Data flows through companies like blood through a body. It's created by the transaction systems that capture sales, receive goods, watch processes, and process checks. Yet few companies can actually tell you how data gets from point A to point B, much less what happens to it along the way. Fewer still can tell you where data originates and what the definition of that data was, when it was first put into the transaction systems. Of the ones that can do this, even fewer can do it across the entire enterprise.

There are many good reasons to outsource IT functions -- you can free up staff for other projects, break through intransient organizational or political barriers, or can "sunset" a particular system. However, it is unlikely that you can take a piece of your IT operations, give it to a third party, and have them run it more cheaply than you can, if you manage that operation in a tight fashion.

Frustrated because your business is down and your IT department can't find ways to respond? If you've structured your financial reporting on IT well, you should be able to quickly look at these eight actions and evaluate their desirability and impact.

Finance and IT's perspectives don't always match, but it is possible to create a view of IT spend that can be used for both managing IT and feeding the Finance and Accounting (F&A) processes. Done correctly, it will also give the company tools to speed decision-making on expenditure and create ownership of consumption, which drives much of IT cost.

Managing what amounts to widely dispersed and often invisible spending presents a challenge to any CFO, which is why spend management technology is so appealing. It gives the CFO clear visibility into spending -- who is spending, how much, with which vendors, and at what price.

Data theft runs rampant these days, which means your company needs to beef up its security when sharing information with third parties. What should you look for?

Do you know what each business unit is consuming in terms of IT resources? Many companies split the cost of their IT resources equally, which may seem fair on the surface, but actually causes some units to lose money.

Don't be surprised to find your finance department in the cloud. Cloud computing is just the latest twist on outsourcing. The cloud holds the promise of delivering the long-held IT dream of fluid IT capabilities on demand and without a big upfront capital investment or the ongoing expense of maintaining a resilient IT infrastructure. That's good news for the CFO but maybe not so welcome to the CIO.

Toxic assets -- critical business applications which are large, complex, and often at least a decade old -- can become a major liability. Here are three steps management should take to prevent a problem.

IBM kicked off a storm with what appeared to be an innocuous document called the Open Cloud Manifesto. The Manifesto, which was supposed to "initiate a conversation that will bring together the emerging cloud community (both cloud users and cloud suppliers) around a core set of principles" has upset other major players such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Google.

IT spending can seem like it's out of control for line-of-business managers and skimpy for the IT department at the same time. Ventana Research believes this disconnect can be remedied through better expense tracking that covers charge-back methods. Read "Improving IT Spending Effectiveness" in the BPM Resource Center.

The 6th Annual BPM Summit, Generating Value Through Visibility, brought together some of the business world's foremost practitioners to explore the transformational role of finance in the enterprise. If you missed the live event, you can still enjoy unlimited access to the audio and slide shows from the keynote speaker presentations at our on-demand archive.