^The APQC Blog

Top finance functions are embarking on substantive changes to their processes and their organizational role. APQC conducted a case study research project throughout 2018 seeking best practices from organizations transforming their finance and accounting functions, and found some common themes shared among the organizations that we studied. Organizations on the journey to building a best-in-class finance function exhibited the following characteristics:

1) Align finance with business and organizational strategy.

Virtual teaming promises amazing opportunities, but it can also create big problems. When employees don’t meet face-to-face, they sometimes hesitate to trust one another and collaborate. Flexible virtual teams, where team members come and go during different project phases, can struggle to locate important documentation and expertise when and where they need it.

When you sit down for your annual performance discussion, will the conversation focus on reviewing 2018 or planning for a better 2019?

Blockchain for business: It is no longer just a concept; organizations are actively creating solutions. There is currently a great deal of experimentation and investment in this emerging technology. Even hosting and cloud vendors (e.g., Amazon Web Services) are now moving to offer blockchain.

With recent food safety crises such as the pre-Thanksgiving U.S. recall on romaine lettuce due to an E. coli outbreak, I have heard people calling for increased traceability of food and a greater ability to track products back to their origins. Thankfully, a few days ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) narrowed the lettuce warning to romaine grown in certain California regions only.

“As the [blockchain] technology pushes the globe towards new economic models, we will only demand more from smart contracts,” Forbes, July 2018.

Measurement has always been a divisive topic in KM. Some knowledge managers insist that anecdotal evidence is more powerful than data and that the energy involved in calculating KM’s business impact would be better spent improving the organization’s KM offerings. This attitude is understandable. It takes a lot of energy to prove KM’s worth, the exercise does not in itself generate any value for the organization, and executives who are skeptical of KM may rationalize away even the most carefully constructed metrics.

APQC is engaged in current and ongoing research on planning, budgeting, and forecasting through our Open Standards Benchmarking Survey on Planning and Management Accounting.

Virtual teams have become the new normal. But with so many organizations currently engaged in digital transformations, the virtual teams of tomorrow are going to be different from those of today. The transition to a more digital workplace will bring new tools, new priorities, and new ways of working that are certain to impact how organizations approach virtual teaming. To learn more about what to expect, I spoke with APQC’s Lauren Trees, principal research lead for knowledge management, and Cindy Hubert, executive director of client solutions.