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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…
Payment Behavior by Big Companies Could Damage Economy
APQC is conducting research on why big companies are squeezing their small suppliers by paying invoices later and later. Nick Araco, CEO and Co-founder of The CFO Alliance, a private community of finance leaders, told APQC that small and medium-sized CFOs “are getting frustrated. They are being…
The Talent Crisis in Accounting & Finance: Part 2
Here is part two of the May 13 interview between Elissa Tucker and Mary Driscoll, APQC’s financial management senior research fellow, on her perspectives on the state of entry-level management accounting and finance talent. In part 1 one, Elissa and Mary discuss why organizationss have a hard time…
Why Should You Still Care About COSO 2013?
I was recently able to speak with Jim DeLoach, a managing director at Protiviti, about how the implemention of the updated Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) Internal Control – Integrated Framework (Framework) during 2014 has been an important endeavor for many public companies in their…
Is Your FP&A Team Struggling? Here’s Why and How to Fix Things
APQC’s Financial Management research team is finishing up a study on advanced techniques in financial planning and analysis (FP&A). The following are some highlights and insights into what we’ve found so far. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, join me on Wednesday, March…