Data, data everywhere – where’s the analytics for insight ? by Aubrey Joachim Are Sri Lankan organisations lagging behind? We live in an era of ‘big data’. The volume of data in the world is doubling every five to six months and its growth is exponential. Every large organisation has around 200 terabytes of internal data – one terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes. In addition every organisation has access to significant amounts of external data. Eighty per cent of data is unstructured or semi-structured. Blogs, tweets, Instagram pictures, human movements, etc. are all extremely valuable sources of data that are captured today by a plethora of digital-enabled devices such as sensors, point-of-sale scanners, digital cameras and the like. The proliferation of data in today’s world is a huge opportunity that organisations must exploit. Easier said than done! This is the big challenge facing most organisations; firstly do they have the required ...
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The strategic role of the finance function: The path to relevance – by Aubrey Joachim During my term as Global President of CIMA nearly a decade ago, the theme I chose for my year of leadership was a single word – ‘relevance’. The word relevance is perpetual. It is contextual to when it is used. It is extremely applicable to the finance function and the finance professional of the day. They must be relevant to the audience they engage with. At the time I flaunted the word it was clear that the role finance played in organisations was shifting from one of being passive and reactive to one that was more proactive. Management accountants had to shift their focus from just historical financial statement preparation to participating in actively managing their organisations. Today that expectation has jumped many notches. Every major global accounting body is boldly promoting their members as ‘business leaders’ who can strategically take organisations forward. The challenge is for finance professionals to live up to this high expectation placed upon them when they are employed in industry and commerce. In an attempt to force ...
Aug 21, 2018
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Future of the finance function is business partnering – By Aubrey Joachim Source: FT Sri Lanka Every facet of business and commerce is being disrupted. Technology is changing how products are manufactured and how services are being delivered. Social media, digital transformation and drone technology are influencing news cycles and the procurement cycle. New business models are emerging – Uber, Airbnb and Netflix. The finance function is no exception – it is being disrupted. Finance professionals must respond. What therefore is the future for finance professionals whose traditional roles of recording and reporting financial information in organisations are being robotised and automated? Or the future of auditors when blockchain technology is widely used? A third of the audit graduate intake of an Australian BIG4 firm last year did not even have an accounting background! When machine learning takes over, the displaced human accountants must transform their roles to provide a ...
Sri Lankan flag flies at lofty heights – By Aubrey Joachim A migrant becomes the first woman CEO of a top 20 Australian Corporate. That’s not all – she enters the exclusive domain of white males. Of some 238 giant global financial institutions she becomes one of perhaps half a dozen female CEO’s ever and one of only 2 women of colour. She deals in billions of dollars – a sharp contrast to her petite physique. She is Sri Lankan. Shemara Wickramanayake deserves all the accolades she is receiving across the globe and from the highest levels. Bankers, financial analysts and commentators at the highest levels are demonstrating extreme confidence in her appointment. She drove Macquarie Bank’s share price eight fold since 2009, playing in a field that few would dare to – infrastructure investments. This is not the first time nor will it be the last when ...
Jul 27, 2018
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A World Cup lesson in multi-culturalism – An opinion piece by Aubrey Joachim While the Australian politicians, media shock-jocks and the north-shore and Turak types argue the down sides of migration, multi-culturalism and refugees, the world was given a world cup lesson in why and how these perceived negativities can be turned into a positive and how countries can benefit at a stadium in Moscow when the French national team played Croatia in the FIFA 2018 World Cup final. Seventeen members of the 2018 cup-winning French football team were either born overseas or have parents born overseas. They come from Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Algeria, Morocco and DR Congo – all former French colonies. It is being said that France spent half the nineteenth century conquering Africa so they could build their 2018 team. Of course as seen by the Western world today it is wrong for ...
Jul 16, 2018
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Oh it’s crying time again ….. Tears will not wipe out Cricket Australia’s woes – An opinion by Aubrey Joachim The Musketeers have spoken. The first was heartbroken that his hard earned spot in the Australian national team was given away free to another player. The (former) skipper was saddened over the effect his lack of leadership and undisciplined weakness had on his ‘old man’ and mum, and the last and most truant musketeer was sincerely apologetic to his wife and two daughters. Of course there was the token ‘written-for-them’ apology to Australian cricket fans, the cricketing world, kids and so on. However, the genuineness of their remorse must be judged by carefully observing the point during each of those apologies when their voices choked and the flood of tears gushed. Were those tears for us the cricket fans, the gentleman’s game, the Australian nation or for their personal considerations? ...
Between sandpaper and a hard place. Cricket Australia’s sad plight – An opinion by Aubrey Joachim ‘After all cricket is just a game’, ‘They are young men who made a mistake’, ‘he’s a decent young man’ ….. these idioms are flowing thick and fast from some ex-cricketers, media commentators and sections of the Australian community who are aghast at the apparent severity of the sanctions being ‘offered’ to the three musketeers. But what is not realised is that sports is not ‘just a game’ anymore. It is big business with wide ramifications across a whole spectrum of society. Cricket itself is a business, it is financially propped up by other businesses to the tune of billions, creates thousands of jobs directly and indirectly. Therefore, the fate of the three truant musketeers was not just in the hands of their employer – Cricket Australia (CA) – alone but influenced by a ...
Mar 29, 2018
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The Cricket Australia governance plot thickens Lessons in corporate governance – An opinion by Aubrey Joachim Last Saturday the whole world were given a front row view of how ‘not to cheat’ by apparently three musketeers of the Australian cricket team. This morning the whole world was given a lesson in how not to run a high profile organisation when the CEO of Cricket Australia gave a pathetic display in front of the world’s media. It made Mark Zuckerberg seem a star when quizzed about FB’s recent failures. And this is the problem with all sporting organisations which are today massive business organisations – lack of quality governance and managerial leadership. What the CEO did not realise is that his performance only ratifies what has been the root cause all along – governance failures from the very top. It is said that a fish rots from the head. In addition ...
Good governance is equally applicable in sports – fall-out from the great Aussie ball tampering scandal – An opinion by Aubrey Joachim Regulators of the game, Prime Ministers, sponsorship stakeholders and the sporting public are all concerned and disturbed by a little piece of yellow tape shoved down the pants of a cricketer. Seems pretty bizarre, right? However, when such an incident has virtually brought a country to its knees by embarrassing it in front of the whole world and potentially has multi-million dollar impacts across a number of fronts it is a serious concern. How could such a situation have arisen in a space where Australia has always considered itself to be world leaders – not only in the context of its ‘perceived’ superiority on the field of play but also the moral guardians of the spirit of the game? In Australia cricket is not merely a sport but ...
