Ventana Research Selects Dow, BlackLine for 2014 Technology Leadership Award

Chemical giant's implementation of leading finance controls and automation software recognized for business innovation in the office of the CFO

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BlackLine Systems

Oct 01, 2014, 08:05 ET

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Ventana Research has selected The Dow Chemical Company's (NYSE:DOW) implementation of the BlackLine Finance Controls and Automation Suite for a 2014 Technology Leadership Award, recognizing the chemical giant for "business innovation in the office of the CFO."

As a Fortune 50 company with more than 53,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of $57 billion, Dow was looking to drive efficiency and reduce the workload and stress in its Accounting and Finance organizations and also to free up resources to work on critical projects that would help impact and drive corporate strategy. The company recognized that account reconciliations were a key control and critical part of the financial closing process, but changes needed to be made to the process which involved more than 1,000 people each quarter in hundreds of legal entities around the world, preparing approximately 250,000 reconciliations in Excel.

Under the direction of Pat Withrow, accounting director, Dow has been using BlackLine's cloud-based account reconciliation and financial close offering globally now for two years to automate, optimize and standardize these previously manual accounting processes – with users spread across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.

Ventana Research's annual awards program is designed to identify "business and IT leaders who are using technologies and applying best practices to provide the best possible outcomes in productivity, performance and support of an organization's goals and objectives." In doing so, the awards recognize "pioneering leaders and organizations that embrace technology to drive change and increased value for organizations across the world."

"The Business Technology Leadership Awards are the most prestigious annual industry awards provided today that honor individuals and organizations for their accomplishments using technology to deliver and achieve specific goals and objectives," said Mark Smith, CEO and chief research officer of Ventana Research. "Congratulations to all the Business Technology Leadership Award winners – individuals and companies that have gone the extra mile to advance the use of technology through best practices and leadership."

The Technology Leadership Awards cover 27 categories spanning big data to mobile technology to CIO and CFO awards. Submissions were evaluated by Ventana Research based on an established set of criteria. A complete list of categories, winners and the judging criteria can be found at www.ventanaresearch.com/awards. This year's award recipients will receive their awards during the Technology Leadership Awards Ceremony at the 2014 Ventana Research Summit on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 in San Francisco.

About BlackLine
BlackLine is the leader in Enhanced Finance Controls and Automation software and the only provider today offering a completely integrated cloud platform—built from a single code base—that supports the entire record-to-report process, as well as a host of other key accounting and financial processes. BlackLine's Finance Controls and Automation Platform increases business efficiency and visibility, while ensuring the highest degree of balance sheet integrity.

Delivered through a scalable and highly secure cloud model, BlackLine empowers more than 900 global companies to reduce the time and resources required to execute month-end closing with unparalleled accuracy, fueling confidence throughout the entire accounting cycle. With more than 100,000 users in over 100 countries, BlackLine complements existing Corporate Performance Management (CPM), Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Although BlackLine is ERP-agnostic, the BlackLine Financial Close Suite for SAP® Solutions is an SAP-endorsed business solution – joining the ranks of fewer than 40 other software offerings globally that are endorsed by the enterprise application software leader. BlackLine also is an SAP Gold Partner, Oracle Gold Partner and participates in the partner programs of NetSuite and several other ERP providers.

Company headquarters are in Los Angeles, with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, London, Melbourne, New York City and Sydney. For more information, please visit www.blackline.com.

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SOURCE BlackLine Systems