Written by Christopher Argent, Founder Generation CFO
To answer this #BQs (Big Question) let’s first remember why management accounting exists.
For me, the role of management accounts (which feels like an outdated term today) is to provide management with information to “control and measure” across three pillars.
Three pillars of information
- Performance Management
- Growth
- Control
ie: providing information on how the company is performing, how we think it will perform, how we can support growth, how it will grow, and how effective and efficient we are, and how much more can we be efficient.
Data Analytics approach
With reference to my Data Analytics articles, we need to take a good look at what the business needs to ask and answer to manage and grow the business, if this relies on external data (competitor data, benchmarks, external operational data -weather, traffic data, customer persona data) then you will need external data.
Is this likely to be the case in most companies?
In my experience there is a case for external data in all companies, after all, no company is an island, so it will need an external view.
