Kevin Phillips

A lot of business planning depends on forecasts and in the quest for ever more accurate and reliable forecasts, a lot of people turn to increasingly fancy tools and algorithms.  But what if the problem with your forecasts isn’t the tools you are applying, but your whole approach to forecasting in the first place? If […]

A budget is one of the most important decision-making tools in any business, providing guidelines that steer the future of your enterprise. It goes without saying that if your budget is slowing down your business, it may be time to invest in specialist tools to make things faster and easier. There are three clear signs […]

Close partnerships with clients are the key to success for software development companies. Whether you’re developing for an individual consumer or for business, giving customers what they truly need and want is the best route to long-term success. We like to develop new functionality and modules in partnership with specific clients. Once we’ve identified a […]

Life is not under our control, and risk is ever-present. Fortunately, many risks can be reduced by acting with basic common sense, and many can be insured against. For example, the biggest physical risk most of us face every day is getting into our cars. But if you obey traffic rules and drive defensively, you […]

Software companies that want to expand their businesses overseas need to look beyond the venture capital (VC) model. A lot of companies focus on getting VC funding so they can move overseas and open an office in London or New York or San Francisco. But it’s extremely expensive, you surrender a large stake in your […]

The world is moving yet again towards the threat of recession: exchange rates are yo-yoing, and even our kids know that “double dip” is not a kind of ice-cream topping. Under these circumstances, the natural instinct of many is to batten down the hatches and find a safe shelter in which to weather out the […]

The difference between leadership and mere management often boils down to just one thing: vision. People follow leaders because they are able to paint a picture of a future that is so desirable that it inspires people to do what they ordinarily wouldn’t. But to be inspiring, a vision also needs to be believable. Otherwise, […]

Judging by the number of customer enquiries about it, we appear to be in the middle of another wave of enthusiasm for activity-based costing (ABC). In theory, ABC is a powerful analytical tool for helping businesses understand exactly what makes them tick. But is the insight delivered worth the extra cost of implementation? Although our […]

The ever-increasing pace of technology change delivers lots of lovely new gadgets for consumers, but spare a thought for the poor third-party software developer. While Microsoft is already offering sneak previews of Windows 8 and Apple is rolling out yet another major release of OS X, we still have clients running Windows 2000, Windows XP, […]

There are some kinds of software you just buy: word processors, email clients and anti-virus packages are obvious examples. But when it comes to software that serves more specialised needs in the organisation, like financial systems, many people wonder if it wouldn’t be better to build their own. At least that way, the argument goes, […]

There are two good reasons to avoid any software implementation process that will take more than two to six months (at most). The first is cost: IT consultants don’t come cheap and the business case for your fancy new software can start looking shaky very quickly once you add in all the hidden costs. The […]

It shouldn’t be news to anybody when I say that the relationship between accountants and IT people is not always a happy one. Our priorities often conflict, each of us speaks a jargon that is impenetrable to the other and there’s a lingering suspicion on both sides that we’re being set up to take the […]