Scaling businesses require adequate funding to support their growth, which includes assembling a well-rounded and experienced team, creating a solid financial and business strategy, and successfully executing it.
An important part of maintaining a healthy, long-term relationship with investors is providing them with accurate and timely reports and forecasts. … Read More
I was flicking through Verne Harnish’s book Scaling Up and I came across the concept of the Valley of Death. This is something I have seen in a number of different guises. His version is interesting as it warns us of a number of Valley’s as the business scales. Specifically he groups ‘Firms’ into four sizes from $50 million in Revenues; the four stages of growth in a scaling business. … Read More
Have you ever considered the difference between Action and Activity? I was reading a book on personal growth recently and it was outlined. On a personal level we can spend much of our time being busy, demonstrating plenty of activity but this may not be worthwhile action. Many of us are more comfortable in activity but this prevents us from getting into worthwhile action. … Read More
The Inner Ring was recommended to me only last week. I’m not sure how I made it this far without knowing about it. Forgive me, if you know it well and have it thought through. If you haven’t come across it, it is worth a read. … Read More
I’m writing a blog on remote working and in the process I came across Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist who specializes in how we can find motivation and meaning in work, and live more generous and creative lives.
Grant is interviewed by Rich Roll in a recent podcast. Among a number of items, including the revolution in remote working that could be coming our way, they discuss how we promote our ideas. I was taken by the Preachers, Prosecutors and Politicians concept.
Finance as a Service is a remote team, that can commence their service on demand, increase it or decrease it as needed, they use automated contract software and there are no set up costs or infrastructure costs required.
FaaS uses a subscription model and all the software deployed is cloud based. The software includes automatic and frequent updates, timely improvements and security is at the highest level.
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So what makes for a good Three Way Forecast? My priority is the ability to print (PDF) into three summary pages no matter how complex the model, including key assumptions. Complexity and detail are fine if you are driving the model but for the reader it must be concise.
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Why is this relevant on a blog for entrepreneurs with an interest in improving their finance capabilities? It’s January and for most of us this is a time for us to do some more planning. You may just be refining your plan but somewhere in that plan you have goals. There is one thing we all experienced in 2020 and that was having our plans turned on there head. Maybe for the better but upside down none the less. … Read More
The finance world is particularly bad when it comes to abusing jargon. We don’t even know we are using it most of the time. Future proofing, growth strategy, below the line, bottom line, hit to the balance sheet, EBITDA, funds flow and this week’s topic KPI, to name a few. … Read More
Élan Corporation plc was the first Irish business that I remember having an extraordinary valuation. For those of you too young to remember, it was a Pharmaceutical business “founded in Ireland by American businessman Don Panoz in 1969. In the late 1990s its value on the Irish Stock Exchange reached over €20bn. However, in 2002 an accounting scandal and investor reactions to the global slump, caused a major devaluation resulting in a share price slump of over 90%” (Wikipedia). … Read More
Leonardo da Vinci was a polymath (a person of wide knowledge or learning) and he was good friends with Luca Pacioli an Italian mathematician & Franciscan friar. He is referred to as “The Father of Accounting” in Europe and he documented the accounting system we use today in a book called the Summa de arithmetica, geometria. Proportioni et proportionalita (Venice 1494), a textbook for use in the schools of Northern Italy. The accounting system he described was in use at the time by Venetian merchants. … Read More
Do you know your profit margin percentages and how they compare in your industry and to other sectors? More importantly do they make sense to you? To Know Your Business, you need to Know Your Numbers. An essential component of your numbers are your margins. … Read More
Normally at this time of year Keogh Ryan Tierney Chartered Accountants do an event for business leaders in conjunction with The Timoney Leadership institute www.timoneyleadership.ie . Several years ago it was a fireside chat between Mike Webster, CEO Arvoia and John Killeen. During this discussion, the concept of ‘Bad Revenue’ was raised by Mike and it became one of the talking points of the event. … Read More
I have been using the descriptor ‘Management Information Systems’ more recently as I educate businesses on Knowing their Numbers and I noticed it isn’t in common use anymore. When I trained as an accountant in KPMG, MIS was the focus for many businesses. Why don’t we hear about MIS as often anymore? … Read More
So far in this blog I have kept away from topics that are likely to overexcite accountants!: It’s been all words and not much on numbers. I’ve got to be careful here that I don’t slide into the exciting world of the accountant and lose my general following. Six weeks in, I’m drawn to the murky world of projections, forecasts and budgets. … Read More
Your business plan should be concise, free from jargon and use language that focuses the mind of the reader on the objective. Ideally, a business plan should be no longer than 10 pages and each section should be contained on one page if possible. … Read More
Every good business has a business plan but as Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. Well I guess, if you are fighting Mike Tyson, you have a plan for when you get punched in the mouth! … Read More
STRATEGY AND YOUR HOW
It is essential to establish and understand WHY you are in business and then to develop a model of HOW you will deliver that vision. At a high level, your business model is your mission. Some organisations go to a lot of trouble to formulate a mission statement.