This article was very interesting. The author makes the case that the CFO is a strategic partner to the CEO, not just a technician who manages the money. I found it especially interesting that, apparently, most CFOs in prior years came from accounting while most modern CFOs come from “financial planning and analysis”.

I obviously found many parallels between this and the smaller world I operate in helping individuals and small business. The technical aspects are becoming less and less important — while the growing complexity of the world is causing qualitative decisions to become more common and more valuable. The planning and analysis is where most of the value is created — but so many people and businesses don’t do even the most basic — they’re all too busy trying to stay caught up to ever get ahead!

This article is especially impactful when you look at it conjunction with the below article. If you are spending all your accounting dollars (every business has a certain amount of money that needs to go to the accounting function — those are your accounting dollars) just trying get the information recorded, you are missing out on major strategic advantages. Technology is bringing large business tools to small business for many years — but the pace of uptake is accelerating. Which means if you haven’t even thought about how to make your accounting (or any operational function) more streamlined you are behind. Because the companies that do are able to make better strategic decisions and out maneuver their laggard competitors.

Read the article.