The Ledger

Artificial Intelligence Is Making Real Strides In The Way We Do Business

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already being used by thousands of companies around the world and is changing key business processes. Machine learning has been the most important general-purpose technology of this era. Machine learning’s ability to think for itself in a sense and learn how to perform tasks without any human interaction allows companies to get stronger insights into their business. Organizations that can rapidly sense and respond to opportunities will seize the advantage in the AI-enabled landscape. So the successful strategy is to be willing to experiment and learn quickly.

Read More at The Harvard Business Review >

Get Strategic With Your Quotes

The idea of quoting is simple- Sales teams provide their customers or prospects with a quote based on information produced by a neutral view of costs and the markup necessary to achieve their target profit margins. However, this process is not as straight forward as it sounds. There are many different reasons why quoting can become complex- sales people pursuing commissions and bonuses; accountants applying rigid standard costs and incomprehensible overhead; and manufacturing stuck with getting the job done and somehow taking the blame if it isn’t profitable. So how can improvements be made?

“Adopting an advanced managerial costing system can achieve these quoting objectives, and provide great insights into product, customer and channel profitability, which can be then used to develop new competitive strategies.” -Larry White, Resource Consumption Accounting Institute

Read More at Automation World >

Why “Customer Obsessed Leaders” Are More Successful

A recent study by Forrester Consulting found that almost 90% of the surveyed CFOs  are prioritizing improvements to customer experience this year. The study also identified 36% of the participants’ organizations as “customer obsessed leaders.” It defined them as prioritizing customer-focused initiatives this year and having experienced increased customer acquisition, retention, and satisfaction. Consumers are constantly evolving and if companies want to gain customer loyalty and remain competitive, CFOs should employ a data-driven operating model consisting of 5 specific elements.

Read More at CFO Magazine >

Turning Your Data Into Dollars

“If you focus your analytics on your decision, you are already ahead of most analytical practitioners.”

New technologies are breaking through the finance world to help companies view their data at new levels of granulation that will provide greater insights, and ultimately leading to better strategy and decision making. However, once finance teams get their hands on this new technology, they don’t know what to do with it. This leads to endless hours of digging through data to find some kind of insights that rarely see the light of day. In order to monetize your data, you need a different approach.

Read More at CFO Magazine >