Recent Posts by Ken Judd

Professional services firms have long had trouble measuring the abstract labor inputs that contribute to their business. It isn’t easy to quantify skilled talent or knowledge workers. But technology has evolved and is now allowing firms to track data in ways that haven’t been possible previously. Now medium and midsize businesses that provide professional services have the tools to see how each employee impacts revenues and profits. Using applications that improve visibility...

Manufacturers have long been able to track costs and value using granular metrics at a systems level. This has enabled them to grow revenue and maintain profits in incredibly challenging circumstances. Now, technology has evolved to enable small-to-medium professional services firms to do the same. Firms need to track and quantify costs and value for more abstract factors, such as knowledge and skills. Two technology-driven capabilities now make this quantification possible:...

It’s no secret that there’s a shortage of finance talent in the workforce. While the national unemployment rate is now at a svelte 3.9 percent, that figure grows even slimmer for this segment, where demand for those with accounting and finance-related degrees are outpacing supply: A recent analysis by recruiting firm Robert Half pegged the unemployment rate for accountants at 1.8 percent; for financial analysts, it was a mere 0.8 percent.  Yet, finding talent is only half the...

If you’ve ever been involved in a financial close, you’re probably aware that it can be a painful process—especially for a small-to-medium business (SMB). What is it that makes the period close so painful? There are a number of reasons, which can be grouped into internal and external factors. Externally, new accounting literature has imposed more complexity on financial statements and reporting. Changes in U.S. GAAP—especially new rules around revenue recognition and...

When you’ve worked in finance for as long as I have, you hear some horror stories. One that stands out vividly to me is the story of a small-to-medium business (SMB) employee who wired out $75 thousand to someone based on an email received from their CEO. Turns out, it was a phishing scam. Security breaches like these are becoming more common, and the people factor is perhaps the hardest to control. Criminals are becoming more sophisticated in their attacks. Every day,...

One of the toughest challenges for any small-to-medium business (SMB) is finding the right talent, especially in finance. As I noted in a previous column, there is a severe shortage of finance talent for SMBs. One of the biggest reasons that SMBs have trouble hanging onto their finance talent is the workload. While it’s true that smaller, private companies are not subject to all the same regulations as larger, publicly-traded enterprises, they should still follow finance...

I started my career in finance over twenty years ago. Back then, the pace of change was slower than it is now. We didn’t have always-on smartphones, email, and social media. iPhones, Twitter, Facebook and 24x7 access didn’t exist. If an emergency came up, you might get a call at home (on your landline!) after dinner. But since most of your customers, suppliers and partners shut their doors at 5 p.m. every night, there were a lot fewer emergencies. Today, chief financial...

Do you ever get tired of being the grown-up in the room? That’s one of the CFO’s most important personas at a fast-growing company. The CEO will come at you with all kinds of ambitious plans about international expansion or acquiring your fiercest competitor. The marketing team will want to launch innovative new promotional campaigns. The development team will want to launch new products. And they’re all competing for a finite amount of money to do it. Your job is to encourage...