Expanding Impact
News and insights to keep you up to date and on track: navigating the great resignation, reducing cycle time, shifting priorities, and more.
News and insights to keep you up to date and on track: navigating the great resignation, reducing cycle time, shifting priorities, and more.
How the Great Resignation is Changing Finance and Testing CFOs
Juergen Lindner for CFO Dive | @CFODive
CFOs have a new challenge to contend with: higher-than-normal turnover. This trend is forcing finance leaders to look at new ways to meet the demands and expectations of current and potential employees to ensure staff stability.
“It’s more important than ever for a CFO to have insight across the company’s finance and HR systems, access to accurate and current data, and the ability to perform a range of analyses. Finance leaders need to work closely with leaders in human resources as well as key lines of business to devise an office and flexible work strategy that works today and in the future.”
More on pandemic learnings: 5 Reasons Finance Teams Shouldn’t Return to Business as Usual
CFO Priorities: How COVID-19 Rewrote the List
Oliver Rowe for FM | @FM_the_magazine
Even before the pandemic, CFOs began to see their responsibilities expand to different functional areas. The last 18 months have accelerated this, especially as finance systems depend more and more on technology to support changes in business and workplace models.
“Greater involvement and sense of urgency in ensuring all these functions are coordinated with appropriate budgets — and actions to address any shortfalls — to support the business strategy have been revisited.”
How new tools can help finance increase strategic impact: Is Your Finance Team Under Pressure? Eight Ways Center Can Help
Cycle Time to Complete the Annual Budget: Metric of the Month
Perry D. Wiggins for CFO | @cfo
For many finance teams, annual budgeting can be a time-consuming and challenging task. Here are four practices to adopt to decrease your cycle time and make the process more efficient for everyone involved.
“Make the process a collaborative effort by getting stakeholders to help construct solutions when impasses occur. Maintaining peace and calm in budgetary discussions will help keep cycle times lower. It is also a good opportunity for the CFO to flex their soft skills (e.g., negotiation, communication, and problem-solving).”
More on annual budgeting from Center: Are You Ready for Planning Season?
The Feedback Founders Need to Hear — How to Grow Yourself To Grow The Company
First Round Review | @firstround
Founders and CEOs need to evolve with their companies to ensure long-term success. Self-awareness and feedback help leaders grow alongside their organizations.
“In the busyness of our day-to-day lives, we tend to push aside our instincts. If we don’t proactively make time for the kind of thinking that builds self-awareness and intuition, we may make decisions based on forces that we’re not really conscious of.”
More on empowering teams to grow and be more strategic: How Finance Teams Use Their Time
The CFO’s Role is Changing: These Days, They Need to be Jack of all Trades
PYMNTS | @pymnts
When adapting to changes in the economic climate, CFOs need to be flexible enough to participate in decision making in many areas of their business, including those outside of their traditional roles.
“The modern CFO has to really take a thoughtful approach to looking at their systems, looking at their people and making sure their processes are all aligned in order to be able to move forward. You have to be able to focus on finance, but you also have to be able to step back and make sure you’re inserted in the business. If you can do that, it means you’re having an influence not only over the product, but also the strategic direction of the business.”
How Center helps finance teams work smarter: What Is the Purpose of Expense Management Software?
Improving Critical Thinking Skills
Sonja Pippin, Brett Rixom, and Jeffrey Wong for Strategic Finance | @SFMagazineIMA
Metacognition, or “thinking about thinking,” can be a useful approach for finance professionals to employ when analyzing complicated data and tackling tricky finance problems.
“Experienced individuals such as CFOs and controllers have more technical knowledge and practical experience to rely on, but it’s possible these seasoned employees fall into habits and follow past patterns of thought without fully exploring potential causes for surprising results.”
An important way to unify and energize your team: Fiscal Culture is Company Culture. What’s Yours?
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