When the Tax Shelter Becomes the Burning Building
A pharma multinational running operations across Florida, Mexico, Colombia, Spain, and the Dominican Republic had a BEPS-compliant transfer pricing structure — and a profitability problem no one could explain. Pedro San Martín of Asher & Company shows how Oracle EPCM Profitability and Cost Management exposed a USD 57.8M cost gap hiding in plain sight, and why the real battle wasn't with the tax authority. It was with the operating model.
The Mismatch Problem: Why Most Firms Sell EPM Software but Can't Answer Your Profitability Question
Most firms sell EPM software and call it profitability consulting. After spending $1.8M on a "profitability transformation," one CFO still couldn't answer a simple question: Is Branch 14 making us money? Here are the 3 questions every CFO should ask before hiring a profitability advisor.
The Mine That Knew Too Much and Decided Too Little
In 2003, I was part of the PwC team deployed to Industrias Peñoles at Mina Proaño — one of the deepest silver mines in the world, operating since 1554. Silver was under pressure. Costs were rising. And nobody could tell management which parts of the mountain were worth digging. This is the story of how PeopleSoft ABM and Metify Predictive Planning built the first zone-level profitability map in the mine's 450-year history — and forced the hardest operational decision I've seen in twenty years of EPM work.
Are We Controlling Costs — or Designing Value?
When a CFO gets handed a 15% opex cut with no reinvestment plan, cost discipline has replaced strategic discipline. This article explores how CFOs can lead strategic transformations using frameworks like Fit for Growth, Cost-to-Serve, and Design-to-Margin. True profitability doesn't come from tightening the belt — it comes from knowing, with surgical precision, where every dollar creates value.AUTHOR: Peter San Martin (ya está bien)
Asher & Company and PwC Interamericas: A Strategic Finance Center of Excellence for Latin America
Asher & Company and PwC Interamericas launch a Strategic Finance Center of Excellence — a joint venture combining ABC/M profitability models, Oracle EPM architectures, and the Decision-to-Value framework to close the gap between data and financial decisions across Latin America.