Strategic Bean-Counting: Potential Unrealized in DoD
Abstract
Key decision-makers in the Department of Defense fail to appreciate what commercial industry has known for some time; that accurate and timely financial information can create a strategic advantage. To create this strategic advantage, accounting, and the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) must be treated as one interrelated financial management system. Strategic plans consider financial management only from the perspective of trying to get the resources to carry out the strategy. Emphasis should be placed on using financial management as a way of evaluating which strategies will be most effective. If financial information were available for strategic decision-making, it could be used to strengthen the Army's request to Congress for resources by building a business case for transformation. Efforts undertaken by the Rumsfeld administration to improve financial management are strategically flawed because they do not link changes in PPBS to the modernization of the accounting systems. Modernizing the accounting systems may improve the accuracy and timeliness of financial data, however it will not yield Rumsfeld's ultimate objective of "reliable, accurate and timely financial information upon which to make the most effective business decisions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 05, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA404489
Entities
People
- Kathleen S. Miller
Organizations
- United States Army War College