We love a waterfall chart, because they help us tell a story. What does every great story have? A beginning, middle and end. A table of numbers will only show you the beginning and the end. Imagine watching Finding Nemo in a table: There's a fish called Nemo and he...
Netflix has changed the game in so many ways. They only just made it though. When Netflix were struggling, Blockbusters had the chance to buy them for just $50 million. Twice they turned it down. Twice. The rest is history. The first original content Netflix...
I recently wrote a post questioning whether the title 'finance business partner' helps or hinders our mindset and approach. It got me thinking. This week the England football team are back in action, following a torrid time. I'll be in the pub with friends, cheering...
Simply put it means how easy is it to covert your assets to cash. Cash is the most liquid, as it is cash. You can use it to buy anything you want. A gold ring is very liquid as it can be converted into cash on almost any high street in the World for an advertised...
Answer, when the cash is collected. The role of the salesperson doesn’t stop when the contract is signed. To find out why, check out our article on cash is king
I used to work in finance for Dulux Paint. We had over 4,000 customers, so collecting the cash each month end was a major task. The head of the department responsible for collecting the cash had been doing it for around thirty years. There was nothing he hadn’t seen....
It shows all your assets and liabilities. Consider your personal balance sheet. You may own a house. That is an asset on your balance sheet. In finance we call it a fixed asset, because you’ll keep it probably for a long time. You may then have a mortgage secured on...
Consider your personal finances. Each month you go to work and ‘sell’ your time to your employer. At the end of each month they pay you cash for your work. You use that cash to pay your bills for that month. And then next month the cycle is completed. You get paid,...
Most organisations have a mission. They may also have a vision, and set of values. Most organisations also fall into the trap of overcomplicating the simple. Confusion over terminology doesn’t really help the situation. So what is the difference between a mission and...
Strategic planning is full of jargon – mission, vision, values, must-win battles, broad action plans, specific action plans. Let’s take away the jargon and get down to basics, with a little help from the 1980s. What can the A-Team teach us about strategic planning? I...
A common misconception is that successful companies market to everyone. Marketing is sometime lauded as ‘one-to-many’, while sales is ‘one-one’. There are plenty of blogs at the moment that debate ‘to target, or not to target.’ My view is simple: great marketing...
Referendums. All quiet for decades. Then we have Scotland. Then the EU. What's next? Is it time for the Finance Business Partner referendum? I have a problem with the term. Maybe not so much the term itself, rather how it is interpreted at an unconscious level. When...
I love pizza. It's my favourite food. So much so that a few years ago I visited Naples in Italy, the home of pizza. I had heard about the legendary L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele restaurant. A no-frills haven for the pizza purist. Hailed by many as the home of the...
When I first started working my job title included the word 'accountant'. I was the 'International Reporting Accountant'. Then I became the 'Logistics Accountant'. Then the 'Factory Accountant'. Then I got a new job titled 'Commercial Finance Business Partner'. But it...
During World War II, Germany sent coded communication message using their Enigma machine. Hundreds of people in Bletchley Park, England spent every day intercepting the messages, cracking the code. But there were just too many messages to process. As soon as they...