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NATIONAL BUSINESS CENTER PROFILE
Improving Business Practices |
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| By Sherry Morrissette |
Sherry Morrissette NBC CFO/Associate Director, Budget and Finance
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Under Tim Vigotsky’s leadership, the NBC’s budget has increased over 1,000%, from $96 million in FY 1998 to its current estimate of over $1 billion. This is directly attributable to not only the NBC’s tremendous success in providing outstanding service, but also its serious commitment to the most efficient and effective use of its customers’ resources.
The NBC has achieved enormous strides in improving its business practices to enhance accountability and fiscal transparency for the benefit of our customers. The Budget and Finance Directorate led numerous business practice improvement teams focusing on |
pricing, activity-based cost management, customer agreements, billings/collections, and budget execution, resulting in standardization, automated business processes, and enhanced program management and performance; all resulting in efficiencies in resource utilization. These business teams led the development and implementation of a standard, automated Pricing Calculator to produce service estimates; an automated Customer Agreement System that allows NBC program managers to input, track and approve customer agreements, and which interfaces directly to the financial system; and an Executive Information System that provides NBC managers with standard, up-to-date financial, human resources, project and customer reports to enhance their ability to make prudent and informed business decisions. The Budget and Finance Directorate partnered with Bearing Point to produce an NBC roadmap for business process improvements that incorporates the best business practices of private sector service organizations. The budget and finance staff has worked tirelessly with NBC program managers to adhere to strict accountability controls and utilize financial data to improve program performance and resource use. With the implementation of activity-based cost management, NBC program managers have an even greater amount of cost data to analyze and evaluate to help improve service delivery. During FY 2004 alone, NBC’s indirect cost budget was reduced by over $2 million due to efficiencies achieved through program efficiencies, and all financial systems’ customers received a 10% reduction in costs due to the consolidation of NBC’s data center support.
The NBC’s financial management client base has increased three-fold and continues to grow as we implement the President’s e-Gov initiatives and the next generation of financial systems. The NBC is the only federal service organization that offers a wide range of financial management systems and solutions, working closely with each client to take advantage of the cost savings that result from standardization and seamless data exchange without compromising realistic business needs for customization. All NBC’s accounting services’ clients have received unqualified financial statement audit opinions, and our financial systems have passed independent third-party audits of operational effectiveness. The NBC is well on its way to being recognized as a Center of Excellence for Financial Management for the entire government.
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