The keynote addresses (KNAs) cover the areas I can deliver at your conference. Other subjects  can be researched on a request basis.  My preferred length is 90 minutes.  However, all KNAs can be trimmed to fit 45-60 minute allocations.

It is common for me to deliver more than one session at a conference as I charge a day’s presenting whether it is one, two or three sessions.

Future-ready your finance team

Finance Team need to help their organisation get future ready. By Future ready I am talking about an organisation that is fast and light on their feet, able to react quickly to events as they unfold, an organisation that is nimble through utilizing world best practice, an organisation that is an advanced adopter of the tried and tested leading edge technologies, an organisation with modern people practices that abandons the broken, ill-conceived management practices of the past.

Whilst there are some finance teams that are most definitely “future ready’, there is a vast majority who are stuck in a time warp, using business processes that have more in common with the Charles Dickens’ era than the 21st century.

The key note address will cover:

• Spending less time locked in the past
• Tackle slow reporting now (quick month-end reporting– by day three or less
• Five major steps you can do before next month-end
• How to have a fast year end
• Using technology for a fast close
• Processes to see into the future clearer – Rolling forecasting
• Finance teams can no longer support an annual planning process
• Myths around annual planning
• Abandoning processes that do not work
• Based on a planning application – not a spreadsheet
• A fast light touch (an elapsed week for a quarterly update)
• Case study: planning tool implementation
• Processes to see into the future clearer – future orientated KPIs
• KPIs needs a total rethink in future ready organizations
• KPIs are special –two stories
• Five myths of performance measurement that are undermining performance
• Four types of performance measures
• Why many measures are ineffective – not linked to the operational critical success factors
• Selling change the John Kotter way
• The five next steps you can work on right now

The secrets from lean finance teams

If the current situation isn’t good for you, it’s not good for your team or your company. David Parmenter is the author of “The Financial Controller and CFO’s Toolkit” and “Winning CFOs”.  He is a globally acknowledged expert at taking finance teams on the lean journey by showing them how to be more productive and efficient.

This Keynote address will cover the secrets of lean accounting teams who:

• Finish their month-end within two days instead of two weeks
• Have time to walkabout instead of working behind a shut door
• See weekends as a period of relaxation and enjoyment, rather than working in the office
• Complete an annual plan inside three weeks instead of three months (both will be wrong!)
• Quick wins that will save the finance team over 30% of time

The CFO as the Chief Performance Officer

CFOs have been aware, for some time, that managing the organisation’s accounting and finances is now not enough.  Management today is now demanding a different role from the CFO; a role of business leadership and partnership with other business professionals, as well as being the organisation’s “Chief Performance Officer”.

The traditional tools and processes for performance management are more akin to the Victorian era than the 21st century.  The next difficult years are going to be remembered as a turning point in measuring performance, as the ‘old makes way for the new’.

John Wiley & Sons have recently published David Parmenter three books in the performance management field. “Key Performance Indicators – developing, implementing and using winning KPIs 3^rd edition” “The Financial Controller and CFO’s Toolkit” and “Key Performance Indicators for Government and Non Profit Agencies”.

This keynote address will cover:

• Understanding the myths of performance measurement that lead to failure
• The foundations stones required to revitalise performance (including abandoning processes that do not work)
• Turning reporting into a decision-based tool (including a one page summary A3 report to the CEO, one page board dashboard concise financials, brief business unit reports, a one page investment proposal summary etc)
• Using the right performance measures – your winning KPIs
• The prerequisites for a rolling forecasting and planning process that works
• The five things attendees can activate immediately following the address.

Fast facts: How to cut month-end reporting to day three or less

Organisations around the world are spending far too much time on month-end reporting where the real decision-based reports are those issued daily and weekly.  In other words, telling management the horse has bolted after month-end is too late.  Month end reporting by day one is being achieved by some leading organisations around the world. While day one reporting may not be a goal you wish to achieve, David will demonstrate how day three reporting is achievable.

The key note address will cover:

• Why the need for change – the burning platform
• Important mantras from Steve Jobs and Peter Drucker
• Lean best practices for your next month end
• Agile practices that finance teams should adopt (scrum, Kanban)
• Quality assurance steps to make the reports error free

How to complete the annual planning in two weeks – not two months

An annual planning process is not worth more than two weeks of effort, so why are we spending months on it?  What CFOs and management accountants need to know is how to cut the time out of the existing annual planning process and, at the same time, prepare the way to managing the business in a more appropriate way.

Existing annual planning processes encourage budget holders to be dysfunctional, undermines the reporting regime as the monthly budgets have no relevance, and involves management in a three-month period where little revenue is made.

The keynote will cover:

• The flawed logic of the traditional planning process (setting budgets at account code level, setting monthly budgets too soon etc)
• The foundation stones of a quick annual planning process
• The two-week process – step by step
• How to implement annual planning within existing system constraints

Rolling forecasting and planning – a 21st century approach to allocating resources

Annual planning, as businesses use it today, is one of the greatest mistakes organisations have made since 1494, the year Pacioli wrote about double-entry bookkeeping.  Annual planning is an anti-lean process and smart organisations have replaced it with quarterly rolling planning.

The keynote address will cover:

• The reasons why annual planning is doomed to fail
• How a quarterly planning process works
• The foundation stones of quarterly rolling planning
• How to sell the change to management

How to spot and counter the ten major mistakes most corporate accountants make

Globally, corporate accountants have been making the same mistakes year-in year-out. This keynote address is based on extracts from David Parmenter’s ground breaking book “The Financial Controller and CFO’s Toolkit.”  (2016)

The keynote address will cover the following mistakes and the fixes:

• Having over 80 account codes for the P/L
• Only forecasting to year-end
• Breaking down the annual plan into twelve before the year starts
• Giving budget holders an annual entitlement
• Budgeting and forecasting at account code level
• Allowing month-end reporting to go past three working days
• Producing numbing monthly financial reports
• Reporting on the wrong performance measures
• Not producing daily/ weekly decision-based reports
• Spending months on the annual accounts

Electronic media prepared by David Parmenter, will be made available to all attendees