Lees top 10: Wat CFO’s kunnen doen tegen fraude

1. Don’t Let Metrics Undermine Your Business
Tying performance metrics to strategy has become an accepted best practice over the past few decades. Strategy is abstract by definition, but metrics give strategy form, allowing our minds to grasp it more readily. With metrics, Ford Motor Company’s onetime strategy “Quality is job one” could be translated into Six Sigma performance standards. Apple’s “Think different” and Samsung’s “Create the future” could be linked to the amount of sales from new products. If strategy is the blueprint for building an organization, metrics are the concrete, wood, drywall, and bricks.

2. How do we save the planet? Solve these two problems first
A few days ago someone posted a question on Reddit: How do we save this fucking planet? As the Amazon burns, and CO2 levels in the atmosphere hit record highs, and climate change threatens the world’s food supply, and one million species are at risk of extinction, among many other problems—it’s an obvious question to ask. More than 16,000 people commented, offering ideas from “end capitalism” to “eliminate single-use packaging.” We reached out to the nonprofit World Resources Institute to get an expert take on the question.

3. Game of Fraud: How the CFO Leads the Fight Against Breaches, Theft, and Bamboozlement
To be effective in leading the fight, today’s CFO must adapt their company’s defenses to face fraud and fraudsters who are more aggressive and technologically proficient than ever. Security, which involves preventing and fighting fraud, is a topic that continues to be more and more critical in today’s world of ongoing digital transformation. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners reports that U.S. businesses will lose an average of five percent of their gross revenues to fraud.

4. Hire Leaders for What They Can Do, Not What They Have Done
Fifty years have passed since the publication of The Peter Principle, but its rule still applies today. His theory postulates that most competent people are promoted until they reach a position that is above their skill level, at which point they cease to grow. Academic studies show that promotions are still largely a reward for past performance, and that organizations continue to assume the attributes that have made someone successful so far will continue to make them successful in the future (even if their responsibilities change). This may explain why there are still a large number of incompetent leaders.

5. Are Companies Paying Too Much for New Talent?
Workers generally expect a significant bump in pay when they voluntarily switch employers. Employers understand that. But do job candidates’ expectations regarding the size of the pay hike align with what companies are actually offering? No, according to recent research by Gartner. In fact, U.S. companies are paying quite a bit more than they have to in order to attract new talent.

6. Boards Under the Influence
Fifteen years ago, The Globe and Mail put the spotlight on a group of 16 board directors who had an inordinate influence on the Canadian business landscape. Dubbed the “Elite 16,” these men sat on the board of at least five of the roughly 200 firms that make up the S&P/TSX index. In the United States, media scrutiny of “overboarded” directors – has also had a dwindling effect. In 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that the number of S&P 500 directors who held four or more board seats had decreased by 82 percent in ten years.

7. Blockchain vendors need to focus on buyers’ needs
The business value added by mature blockchain platforms will grow significantly in the next few years, from just over $176 billion by 2025 to $3.1 trillion by 2030, according to a Gartner forecast. But for now, enterprises struggle to understand what benefits they’ll see compared with their company’s existing processes. The lack of industry agreement about product concept, feature set, and core application requirements adds to companies’ hesitancy to adopt blockchain platforms.

8. CFOs Say They Underestimated Challenges of Lease-Accounting Standard
Many U.S. public companies underestimated the difficulties of complying with a new lease-accounting standard, finance chiefs say. Their stumbles could inform private companies that are now preparing for the transition. The Financial Accounting Standards Board in the past year began requiring public companies to report operating leases on their balance sheets in an effort to increase transparency for investors and lenders. The transition has proven to be a heavier-than-expected lift for many companies.

9. Introducing agile into internal audit
Like many internal functions and most business areas, Nationwide Building Society's 80-strong internal audit team is always under pressure to do more with less or the same amount of resources, according to Eleanor Taylor. Taylor, a senior manager at Nationwide and a chartered public finance accountant who has 25 years' experience as an internal and external auditor, was approached in 2017 to experiment with using agile business practices in the company's internal audit team. 

10. What should CFOs consider when doing business, post-Brexit?
There is no topic more likely to polarise the boardroom, or family breakfast table, than Brexit. Regardless of your view of the case for Brexit, business leaders have had to live with the probability of the UK’s exit from the EU since the referendum result emerged on 24th June 2016. Most will have prepared as best they can for a worst case outcome with respect to on-going trade relations with the EU 27. That includes the possible establishment within the EU 27 to reduce some of the complexities of trading from the UK as a third party with EU countries.