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Business

6 lessons entrepreneurs can teach us Logo cgma

  Anil Kshatriya, ACMA, CGMA, and Sabine Vollmer |   Free |   AICPA and CIMA |   15 Feb 2017 |   CGMA Magazine

This article offers tips from entrepreneurs on how businesses can counter rigidity, break down silos, and manage the risks that accompany innovation.

Topics covered:
  • Management accounting: Business: Strategy, Foundational
  • Management accounting: Technical: Risk management & internal control: Risk response & reporting, Foundational

5 Comments/Reflections

Timothy Samaranayake

Timothy Samaranayake Nov 2023

The article is valuable for me as a director of a micro firm/specialist SME consultancy aiming to maintain our entrepreneurial DNA while expanding the team and standardizing certain processes. Specifically, our primary focus should be on keeping open and ready for change, keeping bureaucracy to a minimum, moving fast to seize new opportunities, and anticipating changes in what our clients want.
Xia Wang

Xia Wang Jun 2023

there are an increasing number of CFOs stepping into CEO positions in recent years. the key challenge for finnance person to be entrepreneurs is risk-take and action speed due to the traditional role of finance.

It is very important for a finance person to be equipped with entrepreneurs thinking, especially in today's fast-changing environment, CFO needs to focus more on forward-looking and growth-driven as a key stake holder of the orgnization.
M W

M W Sep 2018

What competency did you develop?
Entrepreneurs have a better understanding of business than just to concentrate on the financial side
.
What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?By running a business you have to focus more on the following points:
- Encouraging people to take calculated risk
- Adjust to customers needs
- and stay open to change

Did you meet your objectives? If not, what else do you need to do?
Yes,
What will be the wider impact for your team, your organization, and your own career?
Changing from a financial manager side to a operational, I have to incorporate entrepreneural thinking and not just my financial knowledge.
Andrew McKellar

Andrew McKellar Mar 2018


As someone who moved from Education and Corporate sectors to a new start SME 5 years ago, this article really resonates.

For accountants, traditional programmed values are often "off the page" in an entrepreneurial environment but your explanation of the tension between efficient standard processes and customer led innovation helps me position where I am.

This will help me articulate the role I have to others who find it hard to understand as they have not experienced working in an SME.

It also helps me to realise that for the business to be agile in a technology driven sector, I need to continue to prioritise understanding client needs and continue to respond quickly and with passion. Personally agile. We have this in our values at work but it is refreshing to read about it independently. It also reinforces my own values and adds credence to what I am experiencing. 

You have opened up a range of topics in my mind which I will attach to work tasks and discussions from now on  - Governance/risk/strategy/innovation.

Thank you.


David Burton

David Burton Aug 2017

This article outlines six areas to focus on in order to overcome the rigidity that standardised systems, processes, and protocols can create in an organisation.

By thinking like a entrepreneur who promotes flat staffing hierarchies, empowerment of staff , open communication and collaboration you can break down silos, overcome rigidity and manage risk.

The key focus needs to be on  :

Remaining open to change
Reducing Bureaucracy
Being more imaginative
Being dynamic i.e. Acting with speed and flexibility
Encouraging risk taking within agreed defined parameters.
Adjusting to and anticipating customer expectations.