This episode features Oliver Rowe, the editor-in-chief of FM, detailing the contents of the August digital edition of the magazine.
Rowe highlights several articles, including the first column by CIMA President Simon Bittlestone, FCMA, CGMA. He also discusses articles on digital transformation, based on a previous FM podcast episode with author David Rogers; working with images in Excel; and dealing with meeting anxiety.
Rowe explains how members can access the most recent edition of the online magazine as well as the issue library.
Previous podcast episodes focusing on 2024 digital editions:
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- Details on an article about digital transformation — and why many of the steps in such a transformation don’t include technology.
- Highlights of an Excel article by Liam Bastick, FCMA, CGMA.
- Advice on preparing for and overcoming anxiety about meetings.
- Options for accessing current and past digital editions.
Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:
— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.
Transcript
Neil Amato: Welcome back to the FM podcast. This is your host, Neil Amato. I’m recording today with FM editor-in-chief Oliver Rowe, and our topic is the August digital edition of the magazine.
Oliver, welcome back to the podcast.
Oliver Rowe: Thanks, Neil. Great to be here again.
Amato: As I mentioned, we’re discussing this latest digital edition. Those editions, again, are published six times a year. For August, to start, the digital edition includes the CIMA president’s column from Simon Bittlestone. What are the focus areas of his column this edition?
Rowe: Thanks, Neil. We’ve got Simon’s first column for the magazine in this edition. That’s in addition to the column by Andrew Harding, chief executive–Management Accounting at AICPA & CIMA. Simon in his president’s column talks about three profound transformations impacting the accounting profession. Those are technology, sustainability, and people. He describes these in his column and how they open up opportunities for the profession, for members, and for their organisations.
Amato: That’s a great tease to a future episode of the FM podcast, coming later in the summer. I’ve had an interview with Simon, and so we’ll have more with the CIMA president on those three areas of opportunity.
Next, there’s an article about why digital transformation is more about people than about technology. What are some of the details on that one?
Rowe: This article you’re referring to is an interview with David Rogers, who is a Columbia Business School faculty member. He’s also a corporate consultant and author. The article builds on an FM podcast interview with David. He says 70% of digital transformations fail, so what can we learn from the outliers that do succeed?
David Rogers has developed a digital transformation road map with five steps. But it isn’t until the fifth step — which is grow tech, talent, and culture — that technology is mentioned in any strong detail.
He explains why transformation is more about people than technology. It’s about people at every level in the organisation pushing the change forward, rather than a top-down approach. He makes some further points, including it’s not about big budgets at the beginning. Rather, it’s about using smaller amounts of money that allow for rapid testing and learning along the way.
He also says it’s about simply getting started on digital transformation. He has a great comment at the end. He says, “There’s a sign outside of the tree nursery down the road from our house. It says the best time to plant a tree: 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree: Today.” He concludes, “I would actually say the same thing about digital transformation.”
Amato: That’s great, and we’ll be sure to include a link to that podcast interview in the show notes for this episode. Thanks for that insight into the David Rogers-focused article.
How about this topic? It’s one that I like. I’m not having much anxiety in this current meeting, but [the headline is] “10 Tips to Overcome Meeting Anxiety”. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory, but tell me more about that.
Rowe: I think you’re right, Neil. It’s a practical and useful article. It’s an issue that can affect a lot of people at some point. There’s some good advice there. It’s about preparing in advance, asking questions to ease yourself into making a contribution at meetings, and then practising later so that you can actually look forward to those meetings.
Amato: That’s great. I’ll have to ask, is that by Rhymer Rigby?
Rowe: It is by the FM regular writer Rhymer Rigby. That’s right, Neil.
Amato: What else from the August digital edition would you like to highlight?
Rowe: Thanks, Neil. I’d like to highlight a further three articles just briefly.
The first of those is “Steps to Take to Build Business Resilience”. That’s an interview by Raluca Stroe at AICPA & CIMA with risk management expert Rodrigo Silva De Souza. It includes the steps companies can take to achieve a strategic approach to resilience, and three ways management accountants can contribute to building their business’s resilience.
A second article we’ve got: “Working With Images in Excel”. That includes several features relating to images. They include extracting data from picture files, using the image function, and using images with PivotTables.
Then lastly, out of the three, “What Gen AI Means for Executive Decision-Making”. AI, of course, is a big topic for management accountants and for business generally. There are interviews with Chartered Global Management Accountants about how generative AI can assist finance leaders with asking the right questions and how it can support and expand their researching capability.
Amato: Again, what are the paths for members to access the current digital edition and the library of past editions?
Rowe: There are three ways really to describe, by the AICPA & CIMA website at aicpa-cima.com. You’ll need to log in with your AICPA & CIMA login. From the main menu, go to resources and then publications, and you’ll see Financial Management magazine.
You can also go to the FM website, fm-magazine.com, and in the menu go to “Digital Edition”.
Then thirdly, lastly, the FM email to members alerting them to the new August edition.
Amato: Thank you for that, Oliver. It’s been great to have this summary. Anything else you’d like to add as we close this episode?
Rowe: Thanks, Neil. Great to talk to you. Just finally to say, feedback on the August and other editions of the magazine are most welcome. That’s to fm-magazine@aicpa-cima.com.
Amato: Great. Oliver Rowe, thank you again.
Rowe: Thanks, Neil.
