Modern-finance-v08

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Chapter 1: Why Modern Finance is Key to Your Business Success
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Your Complete Guide to Modern Finance
inance systems have evolved from foundational bookkeeping 
concepts developed by Venice’s 
Luca Pacioli
in 1494. Pacioli’s 
published work defined double entry accounting, and he included 
concepts and definitions for ledgers, assets, receivables, inventories, 
liabilities, capital, income and expenses. Perhaps because he was also 
a religious cleric, he discussed compliance and ethics for finance 
professionals, including his advice to not go to sleep each day until 
debits equaled credits.
The principles Pacioli developed over 500 years ago—two years after 
Christopher Columbus first sailed to the western hemisphere—defined 
the legacy transactional financial systems developed in the last 
century. It was a great match that married a 15th century book with 
20th century technology.
Rate and Pace of Change
Innovation
IT Infrastructure
Business
Processes
Business
Resources
Learn from David Watkins, General Manager Finance APN
Outdoor Group Ltd
Finance in the 21st Century.
Then the landscape changed 
dramatically and suddenly early in this century. The
roughly parallel agility and efficiency curves began to
diverge exponentially.
01
Regulations
Competition

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Chapter 1:
Why Modern Finance is Key
to Your Business Success
The rate and pace of change involving factors such as innovation 
(particularly in technology), regulations, and competition (especially 
those with new and disruptive business models) exceeded the IT 
infrastructure, business processes and resources related to a 
company’s ability to respond. The gap was small at first, but over the 
last decade it dramatically increased. It is now the new normal.
This gap creates its own fundamental problem: it drives company 
leaders to rely on “gut feel” and instinct to make business decisions 
rather than using rapid, real-time access to accurate data. It is a 
terrible outcome as this practice delays decision making and 
introduces errors. The net result erodes operational and management 
confidence as delays and errors compound negative choices, 
negatively impact sales, and hurt employee morale.