Posted by Steve Wilcox on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 @ 05:08 PM
This ivory tower comic from Abstruse Goose cracks me up:
As this comic illustrates, the term Ivory Tower designates a world where intellectuals engage in esoteric, over-specialized, or even useless research that is disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life (ref. Wikipedia).
Contrast this to "empirical." Here's the definition from dictionary.com:
em·pir·i·cal
(ěm-pîr'ĭ-kəl) adj.
- Relying on or derived from observation or experiment: empirical results that supported the hypothesis.
- Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment: empirical laws.
- Guided by practical experience and not theory.
When it comes to "research," it's important to distinguish between "ivory tower" research and empirical research.
This is precisely why I am a big fan of The Hackett Group's research ... it is derived from experiment and observation rather than theory.
They have strong roots in benchmarking so they know how to collect vast amounts of data, analyze that data and then draw the proper conclusions and insights from that data.
This is especially important when it comes to emotionally-charged topics such as offshoring, shared services and outsourcing. To make sound business decisions, executives need to understand the facts ... not ivory tower theories.
Which brings me to our webcast on Shared Services where The Hackett Group's Penny S. Weller revealed the Top 10 insights from Hackett's 2009 Shared Services Performance Study:
#1 Shared services have reduced costs by exactly how much?
#2 Does anything else matter besides costs?
#3 What is the fastest growing driver for shared services?
#4 Reaching "Beyond the Transaction" to what else?
#5 How are "economies of skill" being leveraged?
#6 How does outsourcing fit into the picture?
#7 What 2 trends both drive and are supported by shared services?
#8 What will soon become rule rather than the exception?
#9 How important is talent?
#10 What are the globalization trends?
Enjoy the Hackett Shared Services webcast.
-Rakesh Shukla
Posted by Steve Wilcox on Fri, Aug 01, 2008 @ 02:49 PM
head·ache Pronunciation[hed-eyk]
-noun
1. a pain located in the head, as over the eyes, at the temples, or at the base of the skull.
2. an annoying or bothersome person, situation, activity, etc.
What is THE biggest AP headache?
To answer that question, we recently conducted a very interesting survey of over 1000 finance professionals - mostly AP professionals, AP managers & supervisors but also some controllers, auditors and finance VPs. The typical company profile was an organization with >$250M in revenue and >2500 invoices per month. We asked a very simple question:
What are your top 3 AP headaches?
The results were fascinating! Here they are:
Let me highlight (what I thought were) some surprising results:
- I found it very interesting that reducing costs was only 5th. With the pressures of globalization and outsourcing, I expected a much higher response than 30%. CFOs are definitely thinking about reducing costs (see my previous blog entry). There seems to be a bit of disconnect between what's keeping CFOs up at night and what's keeping AP Managers from a good night's rest.
- Dealing with SOX is still a top 3 headache despite SOX being around for over 6 years now. In fact, compliance costs continue to rise for the average company according to The Hackett Group.
- Constantly being interrupted ranked #2. I guess this is understandable since some studies show that up to 30% of an AP Specialist's time is spent fielding vendor inquiries!
As you can see the #1 Headache was too much time wasted chasing paper. Despite two decades of "paperless office" predictions, numerous studies show that over 80% of invoices are still paper-based!
-Rakesh Shukla