The Hundred-Day Blind Spot It was late October, and Mark Ryan, General Manager of GlobalTech, sat in his office staring at a consolidated financial report that was exactly 104 days out of date. Outside his window, the market was shifting at an unprecedented pace. Inside his rapidly expanding technology enterprise, time seemed to stand still. GlobalTech was a victim of its own success. For three years, the company had ridden a wave of strong market demand, expanding its produc

Post by Lukas Rieder The executives of a company must ensure that it achieves a market-driven return* on the invested assets. Only then will investors take the risk to invest in that company. For me these executives and their direct employees are PACE's key customers. They need a management control system allowing them to plan and control the variables they can influence directly and independently in their area of responsibility. This has little to do with financial accountin

Boards often assume value arrives when the model goes live. Reality: value arrives when behavior changes —when decision processes change, old work stops, and economics show up in unit measures. AI creates outputs immediately. But outcomes lag. And the lag is not a technical defect. It’s an organizational reality. The staged value curve most business cases pretend doesn’t exist What I see repeatedly: 4–12 weeks:  operational signals (usage, cycle time in a narrow workflow, few

When AI investments underperform, the post-mortem usually devolves into debate: “The business didn’t adopt it.” “The data wasn’t ready.” “IT didn’t integrate it.” “The vendor overpromised.” All of that may be true. But the deeper problem is governance: the investment was approved on assumptions that were never made explicit—so nobody can own them, monitor them, or trigger decisions when they break. When assumptions remain implicit, accountability becomes politics. Everyone ca

In a North American boardroom, organizational leaders convened for their fifth finance transformation initiative in less than a decade, approaching the effort with a mix of optimism and skepticism. Over the course of these unsuccessful attempts, the organization invested more than $25 million and over 30,000 employee hours without achieving the intended outcomes. The escalating costs, diminishing momentum, and leadership fatigue transformed each new launch into an indicator o

Most AI business cases still feel “clean” because they’re built from what’s easy to count: licenses, a project team, maybe some IT time. That’s not AI economics. AI economics don’t live in purchase orders. They live in activities —the recurring work required to keep the tool producing usable, decision-grade outputs at scale. The costs you don’t see (until you can’t ignore them) If you want total cost of ownership (TCO), stop asking “what did we buy?” and start asking “what wo

It's Saturday and over morning coffee ☕ I started looking at facts about accounting - historical and current. Here is what I found: 1️⃣ Management accounting predates financial accounting. Cost tracking for internal decisions existed centuries before standardized financial statements were a thing. Owners cared about control long before compliance. 2️⃣ Standard costing was basically the original “performance dashboard.” Variances were an early form of KPI monitoring—long befor

I have been thinking a lot about what might happen in 2026 and although there is a lot of uncertainty – especially right now -, uncertainty seems to be becoming the norm rather than the exception. For that reason, I think the competitive advantage will not belong to the organizations with the most data, the most AI, or even the fastest analytics, it will belong to those that can adapt quickly to evolving situations and translate insight into economic control . For CEOs, CFOs,

Risk oversight has become a central responsibility for boards and senior leadership teams. Yet many of the most consequential risks organizations face today do not appear suddenly. They emerge gradually, often hidden within seemingly acceptable financial results. By the time traditional metrics signal a problem, leaders are already reacting rather than governing. I’ve observed that this happens because risk is frequently assessed through lagging indicators—variance analyses,

Few things concern boards and CEOs more than the gap between strategy and execution. Most organizations have well-articulated strategies. They invest significant time and energy defining priorities, setting targets, and approving initiatives. Yet months later, leadership teams often struggle to explain why results diverged from expectations—or where accountability truly lies. In my experience, this gap rarely stems from poor intent or inadequate effort. It stems from a lack o

In my experience, the challenge is not a lack of financial data. It is a lack of integration and causality . Most organizations measure revenue, costs, and investments in separate systems, using separate models, for separate purposes. Each view may be technically sound, yet together they fail to explain how decisions actually create—or erode—value. As a result, boards and CEOs are often asked to evaluate strategic initiatives without a clear line of sight into their profitabi

Over the years, I’ve worked with boards, CEOs, CFOs, and senior leadership teams who are deeply committed to improving performance. What consistently surprises them is not a lack of effort or intelligence—it’s how little visibility they have into why  profitability behaves the way it does. Financial statements are essential. But they were never designed to support strategic decision-making. They tell us what happened.They rarely tell us why  it happened.And they almost never

I am a fan of the music from Led Zeppelin, especially their song Stairway to Heaven. In their song are these lyrics:   “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on. And it makes me wonder.”   Here is a link to the song where you can hear those lyrics in the second stanza:   Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin   What does this have to do with management accounting? The problem begins with the imbalance of emphasis o

This topic is a little off topic for me. I much prefer Profitability, Cost, or Revenue management issues.....BUT people are the most critical resource. I saw this post by Justin Wright on Linked In and found it very concise and highly applicable. It illustrates clear behavioral characteristics.  I encourage everyone to self-evaluate and seek out, reward, and encourage these characteristics in everyone who works for you. 12 rare traits that separate high performers from

Cuento de Terror CFO #4 — Cuando el revenue te traiciona por Pedro San Martín | Strategic Finance Principal, Asher & Company / PwC Interaméricas 😱 El día que el CFO descubrió la verdad Hace unas semanas, un CFO de una empresa de distribución de bebidas y productos lácteos me llamó con la voz de quien acaba de ver un fantasma financiero en Oracle EPCM. —Pedro, no lo vas a creer —me dijo—. Mis clientes más grandes... ¡son los que más pérdidas generan! Welcome to the dark side

Introduction The role is wider, the horizon is shorter . Short feedback loops and long-tailed risks now define the finance chief's job....

With the passing in 2015 of the actor Leonard Nimoy, who was the character Spock in the short three year late-1960s but never forgotten...

By Pedro San Martín, Principal at Asher PwC Interamericas Executive Summary Cost reduction initiatives fail not because of flawed...

por Pedro San Martin, Principal & Subject Matter Expert Asher & Company El Problema: Cuando Nadie Sabe Quién Manda La conversación tuvo...

Congratulations Doug Hicks!!!!! PACE Director Doug Hicks was recognized by the Institute of Management Accountants in June 2025 with its...