A managerial movement is now in motion and picking up steam. It is the application of business analytics for organizations to gain insights to determine good decisions and the best actions to take. This topic was once the domain of “quants” and statistical geeks developing models in their cubicles. Today applying analytical methods is on the verge of becoming mainstream.
I was recently a presenter in the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) track at an analytics conference where a speaker in one of the customer marketing tracks said something that stimulated my thinking. He said, “Just because something is shiny and new or is now the ‘in’ thing, it doesn’t mean it works for everyone.”
Am I alone in wondering if the many references and articles concerning the CFO’s emerging role as a “trusted advisor” is more hype than reality?
Increasingly, I read articles and research studies alleging this emerging CFO role to be actually happening. In an article written by Gianni Giacomelli, senior vice-president at Genpact, titled “Can a CFO Innovate?” he states:
Enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM/CPM) methods embedded with business analytics are a hot topic. Will they stay hot? Or are they a business improvement fad, like the quality control circles in the 1980s? My bet is these methods are keepers. Why? It is for many reasons. A major one is the EPM/CPM methods are so fundamental to an organization’s health.
Enjoy this series of shorts on Leadership from Jim.
Among the leaders I work with—all very senior and all deeply experienced—nearly all bemoan (in their own ways) how “long everything takes.”
SPEED BUMP: It doesn’t need to take so long.
We’re awash with stories about tech companies: they “fail fast,” they try and repair, they’re agile, they have bias toward action, and so on. These are all empty phrases. Yes, smaller, less established organizations can experiment sooner, try more, etc. But what if we’re not a small, exploding tech organization? Does time to decision matter?
