^The APQC Blog

The 5 W’s of Learning in 2018 Have Employers Asking—How??

Evey month APQC drills down on a financial management metric to help readers better measure, manage, and improve their finance functions.

This month’s metric, based on data from APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking, considers the metric Cash-to-Cash Cycle Time (as originally discussed by my colleague Marisa Brown in CFO.com).

As we rush full steam ahead into a year of new promises, fresh starts, and of course challenges. I’d like to take the opportunity to first reflect on 2017 and how it’s set the stage for great things in 2018.

As organizations look back on the past year’s successes and failures, too many operational leaders were saying “humbug” about how much money their companies shelled out this year on supply chain planning.

Early January is always full of hope and promise, both in our personal lives and at work. But as we all know from past failures, resolutions don’t get very far without a solid plan. Now is the perfect time to set a New Year’s resolution to make your KM program the best it can be—and then identify practical steps to make it happen. Here are five ways that successful KM programs design and implement a winning strategy.

1. Start with a small, targeted initiative focused on a specific business need or problem.

New year, new priorities? Where will your organization be focusing your efforts in 2018?

As you get ready to tackle this new year, APQC's research team wants to ensure we understand what your top priorities and challenges are for 2018. We want the research we conduct and the content we create to be valuable to you and targeted on your focus areas.

It’s that time again—time for the annual flurry of predictions about the world of work in the new year and beyond. The list of trends that are forecasted to change the future of work is long. 

(Hopefully you read the blog title with a Deep South accent.)

Happy holidays, reader!

I’m going to begin this post with a slightly embarrassing self-quote from 5 years ago, when I was a first-year MBA student. The following is an excerpt from the introduction I wrote for a marketing plan group assignment.

You can tell I was really feeling myself when I wrote that… And, you know what? I still am!

And here’s why.

Recently I attended my first CSCMP conference, which was in Atlanta Georgia this year. It was a great event, I had virtually no expectations walking in and I was pleasantly surprised. First, it was much larger than I anticipated. I walked in to the large convention center Sunday night for what I thought was a small pre-conference social and a chance to meet a few people, but in reality the conference was 100% up and running. There were around 75 vendors booths, food, drinks, a live band, and probably a thousand or more people throughout the night.

2017 is quickly coming to a close and business professionals across the globe are engaged in a common annual ritual. They are assessing how well their organization performed over the past year and crafting plans for a more successful 2018.