“This course made me realize that there are two ways to view myself and my life: From the outside looking in (how others see me), and from the inside looking out (how I see myself). Now that I’m aware of these two perspectives, I think about everything differently.”
What discipline solicited such a thoughtful, life-changing reaction from an undergraduate?
Psychology? Religion? Philosophy?
None of the above. It was managerial accounting.
A NEW CFO PRIORITY: TALENT DEVELOPMENT WITH A FOCUS ON SOFT SKILLS In previous years, the finance function sat mostly on its own and “crunched the numbers” without having much input into daily operations or long term strategy. However, the finance role has evolved to one that needs to provide sharp and meaningful analyses to…
True or false: The typical large, corporate accounting operation has been cleared of waste and inefficiency. According to APQC benchmarking metrics, a lot of flotsam remains. And this is despite a decade of cost reduction campaigns by CFOs and controllers.
What gives?
I see where CFOs need to “Float like a Butterfly”. Not only do Chief Financial Officers need to be appreciated for their ability to (continually) transform, Successful CFOs are appreciated for their grace and form as they accomplish amazing tasks with what looks like relative ease.
Do CFOs need to “Sting like a Bee”? Do they need to inflict pain to accomplish corporate objectives?
Butterflies have an easy transformation from caterpillar.
CFOs, those that make it to the role and those that are successful in the long term, have a much harder time. In fact, they do not have one transformational moment in a cocoon, but a series of ongoing transformations they must seek and overcome to continue to be successful and on top of their game.
Staffing levels in corporate accounting and finance are expected to remain stable in the third quarter, according to a recent survey of CFOs.
But the same executives increasingly are reporting difficulty finding qualified professionals.
A Performance Measurement dashboard is an exceptionally useful system for measuring and visually reporting on key performance indicators. Combining key performance indicators with a dashboard better enables the organization to monitor, analyze and manage important business processes from numerous perspectives, impacting both organizational effectiveness and agility.
But in order to move forward, the U.S. would still have to “have a strong voice” in the development of international standards, the chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission says.
At this week’s CFO Corporate Performance Management Conference in New York, Jonah Keri, author of 2011’s The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First, told how the Tampa Bay Rays managed to reach the playoffs three out of the last four years with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball.
I enjoy maturity and evolution models of all kinds, especially for business. There is a stages of maturity model for information technologies and others such as for sales teams and their customer relationships. What I like about stages of maturity models is they provide confidence that regardless what stage one is at – low or high – there is a next step further up that can be attained in an evolutionary way.