Strategy Driven

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

Leaders of small and medium size businesses (SMBs) often think their size lets them operate under the radar, as less attractive targets to bad guys. And, sadly, the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) reports that 60 percent of small companies are unable to sustain their business more than six months following a cyberattack.

Bottom-up 98

Bottom-up Software Policies CIO 98

HR Digest

NOVEMBER 20, 2020

Coding, budgeting, and marketing operations are examples. Process automation professionals. Hire a Chief Future Officer (CFO). To accommodate the escalating speed of change and plans for the future, hire a new type of CFO. Hard skills are quantifiable capabilities learned in an education setting or training program.

Skills 145

Skills Emotional Intelligence CFO Power 145

Great Leadership By Dan

MAY 7, 2020

If the agency has worked in your industry, presumably they understand what companies like yours value. Put it this way: just because an agency placed a technical Project Manager at a software company doesn’t mean they can find the right Chief Financial Officer or Director of Marketing in the same industry.

Execution 213

Execution Chief Financial Officer Industry Strategy 213

N2Growth Blog

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

You started a company. Missing the turn or making it too late can cause a company to stagnate or implode or can spell the death of the idea; or worse, the idea becomes someone else’s to bring to market without you. To scale you need a playbook so that everyone has clarity about the processes and systems that get stuff done.

Delegation 243

Delegation Maturity CEO Execution 243

In the CEO Afterlife

DECEMBER 31, 2011

There has to be a break from day-to-day operations in the process. In this blog, I am not arguing against a clear definition of where a company is going and what sets it apart. For as long as I can remember, the person bonded to the CEO’s hip was the CFO. Why Mission Statements Suck [link].

Blog 222

Blog Mission Statement Strategic Planning Brand 222

Lead Change Blog

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

Simply put, it’s a process that helps you think strategically about how you develop your story, drive alignment, and tell it powerfully—whether it’s a large organizational story or whether you want to communicate change inside your organization. Miki Saxon of MAPping Company Success contributed Golden Oldie: Customer Service Week 2016.

Leadership Development 331

Leadership Development Development Leadership 360-Degree Feedback 331

Harvard Business Review

JULY 25, 2016

What receives far less attention is that, more and more in our increasingly complex, volatile, and fully-globalized business world, the effectiveness of such action depends on a powerful partnership between the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the General Counsel (GC).

CFO 8

CFO Chief Financial Officer Compliance Due Diligence 8

Coaching Tip

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

B2C companies invest millions to understand the various personas, segments, demographics, and geographical nuances to help them determine how to position and manage their brands to appeal to the faceless masses. B2B companies invest to understand their customers as well, but the path they take is very different.

B2C 95

B2C B2B Marketing CIO 95

CO2

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Org charts can be arranged by function, process, product, market, customer, geographic, matrix, or a combination approach. Companies use different assessments to determine their employees’ communication and leadership styles, so that they can assemble groups that mesh well and are balanced in terms of skills/approaches.

Leadership Styles 87

Leadership Styles COO Learning-by-Doing Planning 87

CO2

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Org charts can be arranged by function, process, product, market, customer, geographic, matrix, or a combination approach. Companies use different assessments to determine their employees’ communication and leadership styles, so that they can assemble groups that mesh well and are balanced in terms of skills/approaches.

Leadership Styles 78

Leadership Styles COO Learning-by-Doing Planning 78

Lead Change Blog

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

Simply put, it’s a process that helps you think strategically about how you develop your story, drive alignment, and tell it powerfully—whether it’s a large organizational story or whether you want to communicate change inside your organization. Miki Saxon of MAPping Company Success contributed Golden Oldie: Customer Service Week 2016.

Leadership Development 201

Leadership Development Development Leadership 360-Degree Feedback 201

Persuasive Powerhouse

JULY 7, 2010

An enterprise business model was developed that takes in all the processes across all the business areas. Processes are categorized by a Business Cycle (end to end business process) which are “owned&# by a majority of non-financial senior leaders. The CFO owns a couple. Thanks for sharing this one.

Greenleaf 200

Greenleaf Maslow Goal Goleman 200

Mills Scofield

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

At Bettcher Industries, we love the meat processing industry; we’ve always loved the meat processing industry and one reason we do is because many others don’t. In meat plants, tens of thousands of operators are “whizzing” meat products everyday in over sixty countries around the world.

Succession 70

Succession Industry Stage-Gate CFO 70

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 6, 2011

Do you have a process improvement program under way that you feel is going well? Lest you get too comfortable, you might want to consider the cautionary tale of a company whose program received rave reviews while in progress, only to fail spectacularly. Two years after that, the CEO was gone and the reengineering program was defunct.

Process 15

Process Six Sigma Finance Short-term 15

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 30, 2012

Consider a health insurance company that has been struggling with change programs gone haywire for quite some time. A few years ago, the chief operating officer launched a customer quality initiative to improve six core processes and assigned executives to "own" each process. How can you break this cycle?

Company 8

Company COO CFO Insurance 8

Miles Anthony Smith

MAY 2, 2018

Matt Sweetwood, branding expert, defines personal branding as: " Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands -- the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual." Czar "I rescue troubled companies. ​ ​1.

Brand 68

Brand Examples Career Godin 68

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 24, 2013

This area of innovation is where mobile payment companies want to play, especially in markets where such technology is less than ubiquitous. San Francisco-based Square , led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey , is among the companies looking to lead this genre. One of our values is break the rules.

CFO 8

CFO Loyalty Technology Definition 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 8, 2018

The market caps of just four companies, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, now exceed $3 trillion. Their combined assets of $944 billion are an order of magnitude lower than the combined assets of $7,700 billion of the largest 3,177 companies in 1986, when the aggregate market capitalization reached $3 trillion for the first time.

Report 8

Report GAAP Net Present Value CFO 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

As the business environment becomes increasingly complex and interconnected, few leaders express confidence in their companies' ability to adapt. They too have struggled to operate in complex environments, and have developed the skills and expertise to overcome these challenges. Take Allianz, a German financial services company.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Company Six Sigma Franchising 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 26, 2011

As finance shifts its focus from controlling costs to advising managers on improvement activities, CFOs must change their thinking and behaviors. He had not been exposed to the approach his company chose ("Lean"), and all the tools and concepts were new to him. "We Getting the CFO on board is key. Then I became an advocate.

Finance 11

Finance CFO Budgeting Operations 11

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 13, 2011

Companies love to stretch out their investments in existing technology as long as possible, a policy whose faulty logic I recently rediscovered in my role as CIO. Then the family's CFO, my wife, who also happens to be a CPA, demanded to know their TCO. The CFO's skepticism was proved correct, and I lost all credibility.

Technology 15

Technology CIO CFO TCO 15

Strategy Driven

JANUARY 28, 2011

StrategyDriven effective executives, efficient employees Home About The StrategyDriven Organization Our Company Our Contributors Karen K. Decision facilitation” enables a smoother, faster process that leads to a better outcome for both the marketing manager and the design firm. Juliano Howard T. Dickens Jr. The result?

Servant Leader 50

Servant Leader Newsletter Resources CFO 50

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

In our experience, companies that adopt this marketing analytics approach can unlock 10–20 percent of their marketing budget to either reinvest in marketing or return to the bottom line. And at another — a consumer packaged goods company — a series of strong brands had evolved in separate silos.

CFO 8

CFO Short-term Long-term Benchmarking 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 25, 2014

Thirty-one years later, I became Chairman and CEO of a global Fortune 300 company. In order for a company to access the best possible talent they must access the broadest possible talent pool. Born in India, I arrived in the U.S. How did this happen? I was fortunate, to be sure.

Team 12

Team Diversity CFO TSR 12

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 18, 2018

Lance Best, the CEO of Barker Sports Apparel, was meeting with Nina Kelk, the company’s general counsel, who also oversaw human resources. It had been a long day at the company’s Birmingham, England, headquarters, and in the early evening the two were going over the evaluations of each of Lance’s direct reports.

Case Study 13

Case Study Team CFO Merchandising 13

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 28, 2015

This all-too-familiar story illustrates the challenge facing companies — especially customer-facing companies. ” Despite these opportunities, companies have been slow to respond to the customer journey imperative in an organized way. If it’s all about the operations then you lose sight of the customer.

COO 8

COO Planning Metrics Call Center 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 23, 2015

If you want approval for a new project — purchasing new equipment or computer systems, applying for a patent, building a new store — chances are you need your company’s finance department on board. Then they have to scrap the part, go through a redrawing process, and have new parts fabricated. We bought the printer.

Finance 8

Finance NPV CFO ROI 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2016

Big companies have been buying a lot of clean energy lately – 3.5 Under this financing structure, the company contracts to buy kilowatts, not the turbines and panels. It sounds like an easy win-win, but industrial companies have had a harder time making it all work for two key reasons: costs and accounting.

Energy 8

Energy Industry Finance CFO 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

It's not an uncommon scenario , particularly in companies with strong succession plans. Here's an example*: Peter was the divisional CFO for the consumer unit of a global products company. In Peter's case, the process of re-contracting was made difficult by Sarah, who was both a peer and a competitor.

Management 12

Management Restructuring CFO Operations 12

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2014

CEOs of midsized companies who make big bets can lose the farm. The executives of Fortune 500 companies might be able to lose the same bet with impunity, and the founders of venture capital-funded startups are only renting the farm (with the VC’s money) anyway. The project budget paid for the software and not a lot more.

CFO 8

CFO Venture Funding IPO Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

Customers are integral to this process because they provide feedback, and every member of your team should be answering support requests, meeting with customers, and thinking about how to build a product that suits the needs of the market. Add a touch of process, carefully. Your company has (mostly) solved product/market fit.

Metrics 14

Metrics Engineering Efficiency Learning-by-Doing 14

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 21, 2012

Almost all work these days is distributed — people interact with one other to make sales and process orders from different locations, for instance. By having groups from headquarters and the acquired company come together in one place, they were able to break down barriers and begin to work together effectively.

Brainstorming 15

Brainstorming CFO Innovation Energy 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2011

In my last post , I argued that companies can't keep their costs in line by attacking them directly. Instead, companies must make fundamental changes to the way they work — how they market and sell, handle orders, bill for those orders, manufacture and distribute their goods, and serve customers after the sale.

Budgeting 11

Budgeting Chief Financial Officer Cost CFO 11

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2017

Despite rapid innovations in data processing and machine learning, many businesses have yet to make the leap from the Industrial Age to the information age, and the gap between technological and organizational progress is widening. How the best companies get up to speed. The Future of Financial Services. Insight Center.

Industry 13

Industry Short-term Planning Long-term 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 5, 2018

As soon as you step into a top position at a company that needs to significantly improve the way it operates, there’s pressure to get off to a quick start. The result: You will have more control over the pace of your transition to new leadership responsibilities and the company’s transition to its new era.

Supply Chain 12

Supply Chain CEO Kahneman Self-aware 12

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 2, 2014

It’s not easy for big companies to innovate. As a result, fostering a true culture of innovation in big companies is often an aspiration rather than a reality. If this is the case in your company, then it might be worthwhile to look at the experience of Thomson Reuters, a $12.5B global information solutions company.

Innovation 9

Innovation Metrics Christensen Workshop 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 28, 2018

The company’s cost of new customer acquisition had ballooned from 5 cents to $50. Despite the fact that the company enjoyed massive brand awareness, escalating acquisition costs were destroying margins. He also relieved the marketing team of many of the manual and process-driven tasks they’d been doing.

Retail 8

Retail Audience Budgeting Advertising 8