Starting 2022 Strong

By The Center Team on December 28, 2021

News and insights to keep you up to date and on track: investing in career growth, reducing turnover, embracing process automation, and more.

News and insights to keep you up to date and on track: investing in career growth, reducing turnover, embracing process automation, and more.

The Secret to a Great Planning Process — Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite

Lenny Rachitsky and Nels Gilbreth for First Round Review | @firstround

Executives from Airbnb and Eventbrite share a step-by-step process for successful planning—the “W Framework”—that will make the exercise more effective for everyone involved.

“Planning is hard because it’s inherently different from other exercises your organization takes on. Rather than focusing on day-to-day execution, it requires a large number of people to think about a variety of possible futures, align on one single future, and then plot a concrete course to get there.

More insights on planning from Center: Are You Ready for Planning Season?

Advancing Digital Transformation

Gregory Kogan, Nathan Myers, Daniel J. Gaydon, and Douglas M. Boyle for Strategic Finance | @SFMagazineIMA

Despite continued reliance on traditional accounting methods, process automation will increase rapidly over the coming years. Here’s a look at the benefits that the adoption of new tech tools can bring to finance professionals.

“Driven by the converging trends of remote work, data democratization, and the wide availability of ‘no code’ self-service data analytics tools, the evolution from manual spreadsheet-based processing to analytics-assisted automated processing will be the next critical waypoint as organizations progress along their digital transformation journey.”

Center is one core digital transformation project you can start and finish in days, not weeks or months: Does Your Expense Automation Stop at the Back Office? It Doesn’t Have To.

Finance 2022: The Time for Talent

First Round Review | @firstround

The last two years have brought unprecedented economic change, and finance teams have been at the center of adapting to these shifts. Here are five areas finance professionals should focus on for career development in the coming year.

“The biggest risk for finance and accounting teams going forward is that business models, working practices, and technologies have fundamentally changed without any corresponding investment in equipping talent to sustainably operate in the new, uncertain world.”

More on empowering teams to grow and be more strategic: How Finance Teams Use Their Time

The Great Resignation is Quickly Becoming The Great Revolt: 5 Actions Leaders Should Take Now

Britt Andreatta for Entrepreneur|  @Entrepreneur

Workers across different industries continue to resign in record numbers for a variety of pandemic-related reasons. Business leaders should immediately employ these five strategies to hold on to their employees and to attract talent.

“One hopefully silver lining of this horrible pandemic would be if the world of work transitioned to a more healthy, sustainable place for employee well-being.”

More reflections on pandemic learnings: 5 Reasons Finance Teams Shouldn’t Return to Business as Usual

CFOs Expect Higher Costs May Last Through 2022

Vincent Ryan for CFO| @cfo

While there was great hope for inflation to decrease as 2021 winds down, a recent survey of CFOs revealed that they are not optimistic this will be the case: prices are projected to remain higher for the next several months, with companies passing costs on to customers.

“CFOs indicate that these cost pressures are not abating and will likely be with us for some time.”

Mastering the Connection Between Strategy and Culture

David Lancefield for strategy+business| @stratandbiz

Teams that work to develop a company’s culture are usually independent from those that work on strategy, but organizations should reexamine this framework and strive to better understand how strategy and culture should interact in theory and in practice.

“Every organization faces a unique set of challenges and context. There are strategic moments in an organization’s journey that have a disproportionate impact on outcomes. Getting them right creates a multiplier effect on other activities as people learn new ways of working and increase their advocacy for the program of work.”

An important way to unify and energize your team: Fiscal Culture is Company Culture. What’s Yours?

We’re here to help you optimize your spending so you can come out stronger. Stay up to date with the latest insights on business strategy, company culture, and finance.