The Boys from BrazilLast week was an interesting week for me. I met with a team of 13 sales professionals from Latin America, all from a global ERP vendor. They came to Miami, Florida from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico (and despite the title of this blog, half the attendees were women). They came because… Read More |
Solving Ambiguous Problems – What Successful Companies Get That the Rest of Us Don’tI’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with some of the best run companies over the years and I’ve come to appreciate what really separates them from “the merely good”. Some of what makes great companies so successful, like hiring great talent, is quite obvious. But in this blog I’d like to share one of… Read More |
Why budgets are not Excel-ingExcel is the #1 financial modeling tool on the planet. And unless you look outside of Microsoft Office, it’s the obvious choice for budgeting. That’s the reason why 80% of all organizations continue to use Excel for budgeting. But here are some common complaints heard every day: The process takes too long The process doesn’t… Read More |
That number doesn’t look rightHave you ever heard “That number doesn’t look right” when you’ve been in a budget review session with the CFO, or some other executive? I have. I saw it at Pepsi (where I was a FP&A Manager) and I know what that moment is like. Here are the reasons why that happens: Expectations. The executive… Read More |
If not me, who? If not now, when?There are reasons why we stay stuck with a bad process. There are other priorities. Resources are scarce. There’s no time. The dog ate my homework. When you interview CFOs that have successfully risen through the ranks… who competed with others for coveted promotions and won… you find they have three things in common. First,… Read More |
Meanwhile, CFOs Enjoy More InfluenceCFO Research finds the financial crisis boosted the profile of finance chiefs. Struggling economy, having to do more with less, what’s not to like? The good news for Finance chiefs is that many believe their stature has been elevated during the economic downturn. That’s according to a recent survey by CFO Magazine and Expense Reduction… Read More |
15 Things You Can’t Do in Excel for Budgeting: #1#1 You can’t tell where everyone is in the process. The first thing you can’t do in Excel is tell where everybody is in the process. You know who’s submitted a spreadsheet to you and that’s about it. There’s nothing to give you visibility into the work in process. You don’t know who’s started and… Read More |
15 Things You Can’t Do in Excel for Budgeting: #2#2- You can’t have executives electronically sign off on budgets underneath them. We’ve all been there. You’re sitting in a budget review meeting and an executive says, “That can’t be right, you don’t have the right budget.” It seems the higher up the executive is making that statement, the longer the silence that follows… I… Read More |
15 Things You Can’t Do in Excel for Budgeting (but should)Excel is an amazingly great application that has probably delivered more value than just about any other business software in the past 20 years. But as a platform for budgeting… well, it has some serious limitations. Like wouldn’t it be nice to be able to spread budgets based on last year’s actual spending pattern? That… Read More |
A New Method… at MethodI came across an article from CFO Magazine I wanted to share with the community. Method Products, a San Francisco-based maker of environmentally friendly home and personal cleaning products, has enjoyed years of healthy growth, becoming a $100 million, 100-person company since its founding in 2000. But just recently the CFO has led a project… Read More |
