You Should Plan For Blue Sky Too
Scenario planning is something that makes perfect sense but a bit daunting to tackle for a lot of people. An easy way to start is to create a table. I use the following headings but use language that works for you. – Fail – Worse – Stay The Same – Work Hard – Blue Sky […]
How A CFO Adds Value To Your Business
Have you noticed that there seems to be a bunch of new Outsourced CFOs about? This is a great thing, I think there needs to be a lot more of us. That’s because there is a big gap between the sort of advice businesses can get from their tax accountants and from someone that has […]
Why Finance Dashboards Never Work
Leaders do vision, they are responsible for the strategy, and then they facilitate the actions everyone needs to take to make the vision happen. It’s always a big job. The tools they need to do all that are many and varied. Not telling you anything you didn’t know right? I think, however, that it’s not […]
The 3 Reports You Need To Run Your Business
I’m writing this on a public holiday, the sun is shining and, after this, the dog and I are going for a run on the beach. I’m doing it today because always I write these blog posts on Sunday mornings, not every Sunday but, when I do, it’s on a Sunday morning. That’s typical discipline […]
Suzzie Used To Be A Chef – She Helped A Friend With A Dinner Party
It was years ago now, and before I met her, but Suzzie M told me a great story about how she helped a friend put on a dinner party, then another, and then it snowballed. Soon she was in hot demand and employing staff to help her cope. I’ve always remembered that conversation when I […]
How Many People Do You Need In Accounts?
We’ve all heard it before … “there are too many people in accounts”….. but first a detour via refrigerators. Hang in there, hopefully this will come together in the end. Lately I’ve been a bit fascinated with energy use at home and have been reading a lot about renewable energy in general. Most of us […]
Why Middle Office Is Probably Holding You Back
You’ve most probably heard of middle office and decided it was a banking thing designed to try to stop dealers going off the rails each day. At the very least something big companies use. But really it relates well to SME issues too; it’s the people and systems that support and monitor key operations processes. […]
Never Outsource Your Future
We are huge fans of outsourcing repetitive processes for SMEs, particularly processes that respond well to economies of scale. Things that get cheaper but also allow better quality control in larger quantities, things that are complex and subject to regular changes. Compliance stuff like your tax return. They get cheaper, and better with scale, because […]
Welcome Results Both Good And Bad
Thomas Taylor – Sunday, August 04, 2019 The other day I heard a scientist say there is no such thing as a bad number. Sure, but it still sucks when you see a result that upsets you. We have all been there, all avoided the scales for extended periods of time, bargained with ourselves about […]
Accounts Can’t Fix Utilisation – Its A People Problem
I keep banging on about how people send things to accounts just because it has something to do with adding up numbers. And utilisation is a perfect example of that, it’s really not an accounts problem at all, it’s not even an operations problem, it’s a people and culture problem. What we used to call […]