Glossary C
Capital Expenditure (Capex) - a payment made for the acquisition of a long-term physical asset, such as property, buildings or machinery.
Cash Flow Statement (CF) - an accounting term that refers to the amount of cash being received and spent by a business during a specified period of time and can be measured to evaluate the performance of an organisation.
Centralised System - a business software application that gathers data from multiple software applications and brings the information together for user friendly access and concise reporting.
Competitive Advantage - when an organisation sustains profits that accede the average for its industry, which can be based on cost advantage or differentiation advantage. 1
Compliance - adhering to laws, regulations or policies in an organisation. Examples of Compliance bodies include Sarbanes-Oxley and FDA. Configuration - in relation to computer systems, configuration is the arrangement of functional units according to their characteristics for performance and pertains to the choice of hardware, software and documentation.
Consulting - in regard to software, consulting means providing clients with individual support from our Support Team to implement the software solution and provide ongoing training and development for the individual client.
Corporate Consolidation - a centralised software solution that accesses data from multiple accounting, ERP and operational systems to convert them to a single account structure and a common currency, and merge through multiple levels to provide comprehensive reports at any predefined level.
Corporate Modelling - creating a complete software framework of an individual business that accurately reflects the physical and financial structure and integrates with all relevant operational systems to provide a continuously updated, detailed representation of the organisation.
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - (also known as Business or Enterprise Performance Management) concept introduced by Gartner Research in 2001, which "all of the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems needed to measure and manage the performance of an organization." 2
Cost Centre - divisions that add to the cost of the organisation and have a negative impact on profit, but indirectly add to the profit of the company.
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) - these are the direct expenses attributable to the production of a particular good for sale, which includes materials, direct labour, distribution and sales force costs to produce the good.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - is a broad term that covers all aspects of interaction a company has with its clients. CRM can also be a software tool that captures and stores customer information and allows enterprises to manage customers in an organised way.
1 Porter, Michael E. Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Free Press, 1998 (1985).
2 Buytendijk, Frank; Geishecker, Lee; Wood, Brian (2004), Gartner Research, "Magic Quadrant for CPM Suites: No Dramatic Movement in 2004" Accessed 14 June 2007.