Usually I am fairly rational and do not let my personal emotions interfere with how I interact with others. However, as the readers of my blogs and articles may have detected, my more recent writings increasingly reflect my frustrations with old school accountants. I cannot disguise my irritation and annoyance with accountants who refuse to be progressive.
Read moreWhat's Broken about Budgeting?
Performance management provides confidence in the numbers, which improves trust among managers. What today will accelerate the adoption of reforms to the budgeting process and a performance management culture – senior management's attitude and willpower or the information technology that can realize the vision described here? I'd choose both.
Read moreWhy Will Analytics Be the Next Competitive Edge?
Analytics is becoming a competitive edge for organizations. Once being a “nice-to-have,” applying analytics is now becoming mission-critical. The use of analytics that include statistics is a skill that is gaining mainstream value due to the increasingly thinner margin for decision error.
Read moreCFOs – Are You a Vanguard or a Villain?
A CFO or accountant with an MBA is not enough to fully appreciate what it is like to walk in the shoes of a CMO, VP of sales, or VP of operations. As CFOs take more time to understand the goals and processes of these functions, they will cross that bridge to become the strategic advisor and contributor that so many magazines proclaim that CFOs already are. They will be vanguard CFOs.
Read moreAre Accountants Homo Accounticus?
Why would accountants who appear to be genetically born to seek precision, accuracy and detail rely on creating and worse yet using flawed information? My belief is System 1 thinking, which is quickly accepting that their cost information is perfectly correct (because it reconciles with their firm’s total expenditures), is distracting the accountants from the deeper understanding of what they are doing.
Read moreA Three Part Managerial Cost Accounting Lecture
For many accountants there is confusion and a lack of consensus with how to allocate costs to products and service lines. I refer to this as “a mystery in a box to accountants”. To solve this mystery here are three lectures to accounting professionals and students from a skilled and experienced accountant – me – that explains the problem and how to solve it. Even if you believe you have already ‘graduated’ from a “Cost Accounting” course in college or have a CPA, I encourage you to sit in the back of our virtual lecture hall and audit these three lectures.
Read moreThe Long Arc Bends Toward Justice
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”
The problem begins with the imbalance of emphasis of external statutory and compliance financial reporting for government regulatory agencies (e.g., the USA’s SEC) dominating over internal management accounting.
The word “justice” is in the quote above and the title of this article. Synonyms for justice are fairness, honesty, and righteousness. My message here is that an organizations executives and line managers (e.g., sales, marketing, operations, supply chain) deserve much better financial information from their accountants.
Read moreWhich Do You Choose - Wisdom or Answers?
If you had to pick, which would you choose - wisdom or answers? Let’s start with some initial observations and consider some differences between the two.
By understanding the answers to these questions today, and how they change over time, you will gain valuable wisdom about your company and their practices. This wisdom will enable you to design and redesign strategies to move forward profitably.
Read moreElf Performance Management: EPM for Santa Claus Inc.
It is my hope that the team at Santa Clause Inc. (SCI) read this article, takes note, and works to achieve their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)! It is also my hope that other business leaders can learn how enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM/CPM) methods can substantially improve an organization’s performance.
No organization can escape the global pressures to better execute their executive team’s strategy and improve productivity. Not even SCI. Sadly, just like the typical resistance to change with most organizations there are reports that Santa is dealing with the “We don’t do that here” rebellious behavior from his workforce. To avoid widespread disappointment on December 25th SCI will have to improve its performance.
Read moreSix Key Components of Analytics-Based Performance Management
As companies face a thinning margin for decision error, the ability to use business analytics effectively – everything from correlation, segmentation, clustering, regression analysis, as well as forecasting and predicting outcomes – is becoming mission-critical.
Read moreCowboy Accountants – The Lawless Frontier
Can you imagine accountants as American cowboys of the Wild, Wild West in the 1800s? I can. And they can be dangerous. Yeehaw! Yippee-i-o-i-a!
Read moreTHE POWER OF INTANGIBLES- Gary Cokins
Top management should take the initiative and advocate adopting accounting valuation practices that more fairly represent the fundamental economics that underlie the operation of their business.
Read moreBalanced scorecards, strategy maps and dashboards- What's the difference?
Senior management teams are prone to focus excessively on short-term financial results – information reported after the damage is done, for better or worse. This is why the balanced scorecard lives up to its name.
Read moreWhat Is Performance Management?
Establishing a strong performance management plan takes a lot of effort. Thinking about your company’s needs and ensuring that your managers and other employees understand those goals through consistent communication is a lot to start with, but it can really be a boon to overall productivity and enthusiasm.
To kickstart the process, here are a few ways you can make sure you and your employees get the most out of performance management efforts.
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