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CFOs Now Waking Up to Cyber Crime in AP
A new report on corporate payments fraud carries some stunning facts. The Association for Financial Professionals has released its 2017 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey. Seventy four percent of finance professionals reported that their organizations experienced “attempted or actual payments…
Finance Needs More Know-How
APQC recently conducted a survey of financial management professionals’ improvement goals and priorities. The results reveal vexing challenges in financial process standardization, labor cost reduction, and better decision support. These issues intersect—and not in a good way for many finance teams…
7 Cyber Security Questions CFOs Need Answers For
The growing sophistication of cyber-attacks has made it clear that even corporations with savvy prevention and protection systems are vulnerable. Cyber security is not just an IT issue but instead a cross-functional concern for the digital enterprise that requires attentive executive- and board-…
4 Tips for Using Financial Management Benchmarks Wisely
Finance professionals naturally understand the rationale of measuring managerial and operating progress, so wielding those measures’ corresponding benchmarks should be a straightforward exercise. But a word of caution is due. The impulse to act quickly with benchmarks can take a finance group in…
Finance in 2020: A Radical Departure
The following conversation is derived from my recent sit-down with Accenture Strategy’s David Axson, one of America’s leading thinkers when it comes to the transformation of the finance function. Mr. Axson will share his latest research and advice on APQC’s financial management webinar Finance 2020…
Some Large U.S. Companies Face More Cost Reduction
Some of America’s largest companies have been releasing worrisome earnings reports to Wall Street lately. The phrase being bandied about by equity analysts is “revenue light,” meaning such and such a company failed to deliver expected levels of revenue growth. Corporate profits, meanwhile,…
Keys to Better Shared Service Centers
On August 26, 2015, APQC conducted a webinar on benchmarking shared services centers (SSC). The webinar highlighted characteristics that make SSCs advantageous to organizations that utilize them and how benchmarking can be used to point out opportunities for process improvement at SSCs.…
CFO Alert: Predictive Analytics Can Change Your Game
Senior business executives need to identify unique opportunities for growth, organize resources for their pursuit, and extract a sound return on investment. Those who succeed are good at understanding that performance can be proactively influenced. They create an effective and cost-efficient…
Is ERP Complexity Killing Your Growth Strategy?
2015 is shaping up to be one of the heaviest deal-making years to date. The first quarter of 2015 was the strongest opening three-month period for worldwide mergers and acquisitions since 2007. What’s behind this uptick in M&A activity? The economy isn’t in recession but it isn’t booming either…
Is the Finance Career Path Losing Its Shine?
Elissa Tucker, my APQC colleague, and I recently gave a presentation to a webinar audience organized by www.proformative.com. Our topic: APQC research suggests that that there is a shrinking pipeline of entry-level finance and accounting talent—and too many senior finance leaders don’t recognize…