Opinion
Accounts payable benchmarks like Ardent Partners' $9.84 average invoice cost and 8.2-day processing time assume a manageable supplier base, but for ESBO Ltd., which pays over 10,000 small publishers, these metrics fail. The author shares four lessons: cost is per supplier, not per invoice; supplier enablement fails on the long tail; payment fragmentation costs more than fees; and fraud risk shifts to the vendor master. With EU e-invoicing mandates approaching, CFOs must assess how much spend sits in the long tail and prepare for slow, unglamorous work like deduplicating vendor masters and verifying tax IDs.
Large companies have invested heavily in AI, but now CFOs face pressure to justify the spending. A survey by NYSE and Oliver Wyman Forum reveals that while 75% of CFOs plan to increase AI spending, only 6% believe steering AI investments is their best way to create enterprise value. Most companies are still exploring or piloting AI, but about 14% are AI leaders deploying at scale. CFOs who master five disciplines—separating builder from scorekeeper, redesigning end-to-end processes, building compounding AI capabilities, ensuring company ownership of assets, and rearchitecting roles—will build sustainable competitive advantages. The article also highlights the need to rebuild apprenticeship mechanisms as junior roles diminish.
Every major financing has two closing dates: the date financing documents are signed, and the date stakeholders (lenders, suppliers, customers, investors, directors, employees, etc.) judge whether management can successfully execute the transaction. The latter often arrives before the former. Between the determination of the financing plan and the completion of the transaction, the company continues to operate, disclosure deadlines approach, and stakeholders' decisions continuously affect the company's financial flexibility. Financing progress may align perfectly with the plan, but stakeholder confidence may not necessarily keep pace. This article uses a recent refinancing as an example to illustrate how a CFO manages the two key assets of 'cash' and 'confidence' before closing, ensuring execution progress outpaces the timeline.
Financial planning often misses the mark by ignoring competitors' responses. Using case examples, this article shows that incorporating competitive responses as scenario ranges into budgets and establishing a continuous signal-monitoring mechanism can significantly improve forecast accuracy.
KPMG Australia announced on Monday the layoff of 360 employees and 27 partners, approximately 5% of its total Australian workforce. This move comes amid a decline in consulting revenue and allegations of client data breaches. Revenue for fiscal year 2026 fell 1% to A$2.257 billion, with consulting revenue down nearly 17% year-over-year. CEO John Sampson stated that the layoffs are mainly concentrated in the consulting division and acknowledged the challenges arising from the firm's own shortcomings. The company plans to conduct multiple internal and external reviews over the coming months to drive remediation and rebuild trust.
CBRE's latest Tech Talent Scorecard report shows that in 2025, the New York metropolitan area's tech workforce reached 394,300, surpassing the San Francisco Bay Area's 375,730 for the first time, making it the largest tech talent market in the U.S. AI positions grew by 45%, intensifying talent competition between the financial industry and tech companies.
In the week ending August 21, several companies announced chief financial officer personnel changes. Aon's former CFO Edmund Reese departed, with Nadin Virani succeeding as interim CFO; Baxter appointed John Rogers as the new CFO, effective October 1; Boston Beer's Diego Reynoso will move to Ingredion; Klarna's Niclas Neglén plans to step down in early 2027; GE HealthCare and Xylem confirmed the CFO appointments of William Grogan and Andrea van der Berg, respectively; Coty, Edible Garden, and 84 Lumber also announced new finance leaders.
Financial AI projects often fail because the data scale exceeds the model's processing capacity, leading to incorrect answers. This article analyzes the reasons and proposes four principles and three questions to ask before purchasing.
The number of listed companies in the United States has dropped from approximately 8,000 to fewer than 4,000, but small and mid-cap companies have not found it easier to attract capital attention as a result; instead, they face intensified valuation discounts, insufficient analyst coverage, and dramatic shifts in the competitive landscape. Based on data from institutions such as T. Rowe Price, Federated Hermes, Bank of America, and Barclays, this article dissects the causes of valuation gaps and proposes that CFOs respond through systematic measures including diagnosing drivers, developing roadmaps, and strengthening investor relations communication.
FIFA President Infantino's $20 billion commercial rights sale plan collapsed within four days. Through financial analysis, this article reveals that the core flaw of the plan lay in the use of funds—allocating $4.2 billion of investor money directly to 211 member associations as consideration for votes, rather than for actual construction. The article emphasizes that any competent CFO could quickly identify this fatal issue from the term sheet, and summarizes three financial lessons.