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Off the Chain: Supply Chain Content You Can Use (June 2016)
LET'S TALK PROCURE-TO-PAY Are you struggling to improve your organization’s procure-to-pay process? Is your procure-to-pay cycle time not as fast as it should be? Let me begin by saying that these are valid concerns and you are not alone. Over the past couple of years, organizations have…
Blueprint for Success—Your Road Map For Achieving Top Performance in Accounts Payable
The financial management (FM) research team at APQC is rolling out a series called Blueprint for Success. The first report focuses on accounts payable and includes definitions, detailed analysis, and benchmarking data on seven AP key performance indicators. But many of you may be wondering what a…
Get Serious about Finance Training
The current fascination with using big data to sharpen business decision making is not lost on finance and accounting leaders. They know it is imperative that finance get up-to-speed with this powerful trend and learn how best to apply big data concepts in the realm of financial planning and…
What’s Driving Finance Improvement?
Today to win, organizations have to outmaneuver the competition, and this is where finance needs to step up and become a better business partner. But how are CFOs, and the finance functions they manage, driving process improvement efforts that lead to this outcome? To answer this question and more…
Three Reasons Why Finance Transformation is Back in Vogue
Finance process improvement is back in full swing—or is it? Some would argue that it’s not back, per se; they’d say it never left. Surely they are thinking of companies run by CEOs with the will to make process excellence a cornerstone of competitive strategy. But what about those without such…
Why Integrated Business Planning Gets Tougher as Complexity Grows
Many organizations have adopted integrated business planning (IBP), but these organizations often don’t realize its full potential. IBP takes sales and operations planning to the next level by incorporating finance and senior leadership. APQC recently asked Dean Sorensen of IBP Collaborative…
Microsoft Finance: Digital Transformation Takes Form
I read everything I can get my hands on when it comes to financial management process change and improvement. I consume both the magnificent and, out of necessity, the mundane. A recent article falls into the magnificent category: Microsoft Finance and the Journey to Digital Transformation.…
Cybersecurity, Blame IT at Your Peril
It is easy to think of cybersecurity as the domain of IT, but with the number of electronic and networked devices needed for day-to-day business tasks multiplying, that is an old way of thinking. Cybersecurity is everyone’s job and a failure to prepare hurts the organization’s bottom line. CFO’s…
World Economic Forum: Global Risks Worsening
“Risks are more elevated and interconnected than ever before,” observes Cecilia Reyes, Chief Risk Officer, Zurich Insurance Group. She was quoted in the report just released by the World Economic Forum: The Global Risks Report 2016. Zurich served as strategic partner for the report. At APQC, we…
The CFPB at Four: The Watch Dog Gets Its Bite
On January 11, 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) doubled the number of enforcement cases it handled in 2015. For those unfamiliar with the CFPB, it was created in 2011 as an independent government entity to protect consumers in the financial…