ConCon26: Elevating ops from back office to front and center - #68

Let's start it off though.

I've asked this in similar, in our previous sessions, like for a hot take.

So Randall, to you first, what's your hot take on where ops and finance leaders are getting stuck in that back office perception?

Yeah, this happened to me.

That was just the last couple of days.

So this is an easy one for me to answer.

It's where are the dead bodies buried? And are those dead bodies being recovered and identified and the data or the bodies actually merged together? The story that finance tells is different from what a project will tell you or the project results, if you will, the project outcomes.

Ben, you and I have had this conversation so many times.

I'm a big believer in PSAs.

I love CMAP.

I'm a user of CMAP.

There's instances where I've helped to implement it through some of Pemeration's clients, and there's instances where it wasn't the right fit, and they put that on the table because it all depends on the sector.

We all know that CMAP is tailor-made for consultancies, and the data you can extract from that is so powerful.

Now, back to your question about finance, that tells you one story.

and projects tell you another.

I think there's a real convergence of those two data sets giving you the real story of what's happening in your business, not just the result.

I often find, and I'm sure there's a lot of people who will back me here and share the same experience, finance is too late.

And if you're just waiting for your month-end report and making decisions off that, you've missed the boat.

And that's why I love the power of real-time data.

How's the team operating? What are the overdue tasks? Where are you leading? Where are you lagging? And use that information to make real-time decisions.

If you can converge those two things, I think that's really powerful.

One final note, you had made a mention of AI, Ben, and how how that could be impacting the dynamic, I see that being brilliant.

Because depending on the persona or the user who is digging into the data, moments ago, Brian and I were mentioning that we serve specifically founder CEOs.

The way that they want to interact and communicate with data specific to a PSA or an ops dashboard is different from the way Brian, myself, and Maria will look at that very same data.

AI can be the bridge.