The Ledger
Curated content foranalytical business leaders
Building A Strong Innovation Pipeline
October 11, 2017
“Companies and government agencies often make the mistake of viewing innovation as a set of unconstrained activities with no discipline. In reality, for innovation to contribute to a company or government agency, it needs to be designed as a process from start to deployment.” These companies need to start prioritizing their innovation efforts before they reach the engineering stage. This way, the innovations that do reach engineering will already have substantial evidence because products and working prototypes will have already been tested.
Read More at The Harvard Business Review >
FP&A Is More Dynamic Than Ever Before
October 10, 2017
The days of sitting in an office and collecting, verifying, and scrubbing reams of data with little or no interaction with the people we support are over. FP&A teams now have the ability through advanced technology to use data to provide new insights to their organization. In the recent past, finance teams were unable to produce this kind of insight due to the constraints of technology and their own abilities. We now have access to much more data (often our actuals), and can transform that data into information and the knowledge and insight that will permit our partners to make better, smarter decisions faster.
Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >
Mastering the Management Accountant Role
October 9, 2017
The Institute of Management Accountants defines management accounting as “a profession that involves partnering in management decision making, devising planning and performance-management systems, and providing expertise in financial reporting and control to assist management in the formulation and implementation of an organization’s strategy.” However, this definition means different things to different people in the organization.
Read More at Strategic Finance Magazine >
The FP&A Paradox
October 5, 2017
What companies refer to as “FP&A” is much more than just finance. A purely financial focus leads to more focus on short-term goals instead of focusing on longer-term integrated business planning. Business leaders are shifting their focus to businesses planning analysis to better align with their company’s strategic vision. This change essentially is meant to downplay finance’s focus on short-term results and shift toward strategies aimed at positioning a company well for a longer-run future.
