The Line in the Sand: Your RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

Businesses and individuals are increasingly more dependent upon the technology supporting their various activities, and the volume and velocity of information moving through these systems is increasing at astonishing rates. With the growing reliance on information technology and electronic business data, you’d think that more businesses were paying close attention to protecting these assets. I recognize that there is a broad understanding of responsibilities as they pertain to system security, and businesses of all sizes and types are increasing their awareness of the variety of threats facing their systems and are taking steps to address them. Yet there remains an aspect of business data protection that too few businesses are really zeroing in on, and that is the time and complexity of recovering or restoring business data in the event of an outage or loss – and the absolute line drawn in the sand which says that “here” is the tolerable loss we can experience: no more and no less.

This line in the sand is referred to as the RPO, or Recovery Point Objective.

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Should CFOs Oversee Big Data And Accounting Analytics?

Corporate leaders are beginning to face the facts: The key to marketing and innovation is successfully harnessing the power of digital information.

Over the last few years, harnessing the power of information has presented itself as Big Data and accounting analytics. Big Data describes data sets that are so large and complex that traditional data management systems have difficulty processing them.

But one question remains…

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4 Reasons Users Might Hate Your New ERP (and What to Do About It)

For executives, project managers, and IT decision makers, going live with a new ERP is an exciting time. After all the planning and preparation, there’s often a great deal of optimism about the improvements a new ERP system has to offer. And, rightfully so. A well-deployed ERP system can help ease interdepartmental communication, improve efficiencies, turn data into actionable business intelligence, and enable a wide variety of other business benefits.

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How Flexible Financial Planning Can Improve Your Business Performance

“The financial crisis and subsequent recession turned these efforts on their head, rendering almost every five-year plan into worthless scraps of paper,” according to the article.

While this opinion is apparently common, and may be true, it uncovers a need for both long-term planning and flexible adaptation.

Organizations clearly project for a reason. The reality is that, major worldly events, economic changes and other news worthy events happen all the time. It may not change your business overnight, but you can be sure change will happen over time.

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Some Accountants are the Blind Leading the Blind

I recently met a managerial consultant whose intentions were sincere, however his advice was surprising, but not totally surprising, to me. He mentioned to me that a company had inquired to him whether they should consider using activity-based costing (ABC). His next step was initially encouraging. He contacted the accounting departments of the inquiring company’s…

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Predicting Outcomes, Providing Guidelines, Being Nostradamus

I have a gripe with the accounting profession. My gripe is with the fact that accounting information delivered to most business owners is old news. Stuff happened, the professional properly recorded it and reported on it, you paid your taxes, and that’s that. Game over.

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The 5 Levers to Pull in Finance to Add More Value to Your Business

What are the most important business decisions? Which decisions are material or risky? Is Finance really involved in decision-making today or just providing information as input to the decision?

Agreeing the ‘business value opportunities’ is the first lever for a good reason – it’s the most important lever to get right.

Yet this is the lever that most CFOs skip over, or pay lip-service to.

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Accounting Professionals, Software as Service, and DIY

The question begs to be asked “how did we get here?” (with “here” being the current state of information technology and the accounting industry). There is confusion in the market; there is still significant debate as to the underlying value of Internet technologies and online application services, and the “managed enterprise approach” has yet to return the benefit and cost-efficiency that is expected.

The accounting industry is experiencing continued change, and understanding the progression of events and technology developments can provide significant insight into where the industry is today and where it will likely be tomorrow. Most professional accounting firms recognize the need to implement technology and solutions that will help the firm and its clients compete in today’s market. Understanding the options available and imperatives that drive the need is key to making the right choices

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Hosting All Applications in the Cloud

Many business owners will recall when their first in-house computer networks were installed. When the PCs were networked together in an office, it made file sharing and collaboration among team members easier and more efficient. Installing additional applications on the PC was a relatively simple process, and when the new application came with the ability to integrate with another app already on the PC, it was often a fairly simple process to get the two “talking” together. But installing and integrating applications on your personal computer is a bit different from getting multiple applications installed and integrated with a cloud hosting service provider.

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