Early-stage startups need to be cautious when accepting funding
Early-stage startups need to be cautious when accepting funding (Wall Street Journal)
Tenable Network Security CFO Steve Vintz wants startup founders to be smart when accepting funding from outside investors.
His company recently completed a $250 million Series B funding round, but before they accepted money, they made sure their investors "understood technology and were "playing long ball," he tells The Wall Street Journal.
"It's important to get a sense of the investors' sensitivities to valuation and the time horizon for which they expect a return. Often that means an initial public offering down the line," he adds.
An IPO "gives you a currency," he tells The Journal.
It "could be a valuable currency [when] investors are so strained for growth" and profits. Sometimes the only way to create the return investors demand is through an IPO."
17 highly successful executives explain how they balance work and life (Business Insider)
The days of work-life balance are coming to an end. Millennials these days want work-life integration.
Employees are more willing than ever to work at home, while out with friends, and during family functions. In exchange for their off-site work, employees are asking for flexible work hours, less oversight, and the ability to connect from anywhere.
Business Insider has collected 17 pieces of work-life balance and integration advice from highly successful executives.
Death by digital: Good-bye to finance as you know it (CFO.com)
David Axson, a managing director at Accenture Strategy CFO & Enterprise Value, argues that the finance department is undergoing a major transformative shift.
"Accenture analysis shows that by 2020, cross-functional integrated teams will deliver 80% of traditional finance services. Finance-staff productivity will increase by two to three times. As a bonus, the finance organization's costs will decline by 40%," he writes for CFO.com
Axson says process-focused finance models are being replaced by digital technologies.
"Traditional finance components - transaction processing; control and risk management; and reporting, analytics, and forecasting - are getting reconfigured. In the process, finance is elevated to the insight engine for the business, composed of three essential elements," he tells CFO.com
Axson outlines exactly which systems are being replaced while painting a vivid picture for the future of the finance function.