This week, my 5 favorite business and strategy post cover:
- Why building your finance function like Groupon, Twitter, and LinkedIn works for you
- How to get your Big Data on – the what, how (stewardship), and why (BI analysis)
- Bartering redone – the new cash flow enhancer
As, always I’m looking to share with you quality information that helps increase your business development skills, enhance your level of business model innovation, and ultimately the quality of your professional relationships. If you enjoy my weekend summary and would like even more practical, useable links than the five I highlight here every week, follow me on Twitter @DonaldMcMichael and Google Plus +DonaldMcMichael. Good stuff I discovered this week: We Just Hired The CFOs For Twitter, Groupon, Gilt, And Other Hot Tech Companies — Here’s What They Wanted So why should we be interested in what Groupon, Twitter, and other hot pre-IPO tech companies want in a CFO? After all aren’t these candidates primarily judged on how well they communicate doing roadshows or something like that? Well according to Paul Daversa of Daversa Partners in his Business Insider article, here’s the rundown:
- IPO Experience; totally overrated
- International Chops; becoming more an more critical
- Operational Finance Experience; the ability to think strategically about scaling the business is more important than ever.
- Cultural Fit; a slam dunk cultural fit – a great set of values that mesh with that established throughout the entity – is the definitive datapoint
…so maybe we should pay attention. Manage like you mean it: 6 ways to be more decisive Every leader has their moments of indecisiveness. Great ones, have a process or check list that they can turn to when evaluating a choice. This post provides six great benchmarks that can help everyone make more timely decisions without excluding important variables. Don’t over look tip number four – designate a devil’s advocate. Ever since early in my formative years when I became a fan of the TV show ‘The Paper Chase’ – yea, it’s a little scary that a kid would like a law school show – I’ve been a proponent of using the Socratic method to vet an assumption or decision. Big Data Causes Concern and Big Confusion A recent Echelon One survey showed that 49 percent of organizations being somewhat or very concerned about managing big data and another 38 percent not understanding what big data is… now that’s a problem. Big data is about many terabytes of unstructured data. More and more you find cutting edge businesses anoint the finance department keeper of all data. Why is this? One reason, their ability to developed control processes mitigates the likelihood of bad data infiltrating the repository. The huge difference form years gone by is transparency and access. Finance might be the caretaker but everyone in the organization has the ability to analyze the data. How do you manage your data? Should You Send That Email? Here’s A Flowchart For Deciding | Co.Design: business + innovation + design Has the small finger on your right hand every paused a hair above the email send (enter) key? If you’re like a lot of us this happens to you on a daily basis… unless you’re a tablet or smartphone user. Then you typically just stare at the screen. Well relax…You didn’t just hit the key did you? …here’s a flowchart for deciding if you should send that email. CFO Bartering Comes of Age Have excess capactity? Or, an old 1978 Camaro engine sitting out back? Learn how this $8 billion a year industry offers businesses a way to gain exposure to new -– often, cash-paying -– customers.