I recently watched the movie Coach Carter for the first time – if you haven’t seen it before it’s a biographical sports film drama based on the true story of a basketball coach (Coach Ken Carter) played in the movie by Samuel L Jackson.
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Share options are common currency today for attracting and retaining staff in the fast-growth tech world. They are also becoming more common place in other companies. Share options are frequently used to incentivise, and part compensate, employees in their commitment to an aligned goal of increasing the value of the business, and thus rewarding loyal employees when that value is realised.
I often write about screw-ups; Jamie Oliver, Patisserie Valerie, HMV, Theranos, Marks & Spencer, Pizza Express, Heinz etc. After all, we learn most from mistakes – and learning from other people’s means we can hopefully avoid making them ourselves.
However, this time I want to write about a company that’s doing things well, a company that has an inspiring story, and hopefully one we can also learn just as much from – Gymshark.
In this webinar, I wanted to give my views on how to keep a focused state of mind to increase your ability in both business and personal performance. I feel it is critical in stressful times to be able to de-stress, reenergize, and focus on the task at hand, especially during the current times of this webinar being recorded.
I’ve started watching McMillion$ on Sky. McMillion$ is the story of the McDonalds Monopoly scam that occurred between 1995 and 2001. I’m only a couple of episodes into it so I don’t know the full story yet but it’s fascinating to watch and hear.
Listen to the article:
I was a huge Michael Jordan fan; I watched every game on Eurosport as a kid, I even had a full-sized poster of him in my room (next to Charles Barkley from the Phoenix Suns). But even if you’re not a basketball fan, if you haven’t seen The Last Dance, you’re missing out on one of the most inspiring sporting stories of all time.
Listen to the article:
I’m not going to dress this up – physical retail has absolutely and definitively taken a complete beating in the last month.
I was recently out on my bike getting a bit of exercise and whilst out I had a few thoughts on how the countryside hills I was navigating had some parallels to being an entrepreneur running a business. The following are my thoughts I recorded while cycling that explains the challenges:
Hope you’re doing well and combatting any cabin fever you may be feeling working from home the past week! In this blog post I wanted to talk about how we are approaching COVID-19 at flinder & how you can safeguard your business in the months ahead.
Here’s an important email that I sent out earlier today to flinder clients:
Dear all, following on from my note last Friday please see below additional business exercises to consider in these testing times. Businesses need to prepare for potential significant business disruption and adverse impact to demand (some may actually see an increase in demand depending on their sector).
Many entrepreneurs struggle to get enough sleep. I’m one of them – my most creative thoughts come to me in the middle of the night. I can fall asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow but it’s the 4 hours later that I’m literally wide awake with so many ideas running through my head. And so with that in mind, this week’s 3 things are all about sleep….
This is a note that I sent out to our clients earlier today in light of the recent developments with COVID-19.
Alastair Barlow examines the history of M&S leading up to its recent deterioration and loss of CFO Humphrey Singer.
flinder celebrated in style as they took home Mid-Sized Practice of the Year 2020 after experiencing unprecedented growth in the past 12 months.
HMV has been in the news recently so I thought I would dig in a little deeper to see what was going on with its performance and strategy. Have a read below for my take on this once high-street super-giant!
Moneyball is a 2011 American sports film based on Michael Lewis’s 2003 non-fiction book of the same name. It’s based on the true story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane’s attempts to assemble a competitive team using data!
Value is one of the most important concepts in business but too often we let price get in the way of seeing the value.
As we get back to work this week at the start of a new decade, many businesses (and people in general) will be thinking about objectives (or New Year’s resolutions) for the coming year. While the business side of this should have been done a long time ago, it’s better late than never.
Finance is not a support function so don’t treat it that way: it’s an enabler to making sound decisions and getting investment, so get your act together and stop putting investors off, writes triple Accounting Excellence award-winner Alastair Barlow.
Happy New Year – we hope it’s a great one! What you’re about to read will flip all your goals for the next year upside down.
Have you ever used Airtable?
written by alastair barlow [blog]
Last week I had the joyous experience of sitting in an F1 simulator – the full on virtual reality version at Mercedes-Benz World. It was an incredible immersive experience whereby I actually felt like I was on the grid and racing the Suzuka circuit in Japan. Words just do not do justice to the experience!
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
If technology is the engine behind your business, processes, customer experience or even designs, then data is most certainly the new oil. While oil is there to make sure your engine runs smoothly, data is also a rich resource and powerful commodity the can drive your business performance.
written by alastair barlow [blog]
Are all accounting firms born equal? Not quite, here’s just one reason why we are different…
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
I recently gave a talk on How to be a Kick-Ass CFO at Accountex in London (Europe’s largest accounting conference). Most of my presentation circled around improving management information.
written by alastair barlow [blog]
written by alastair barlow [blog]
The past couple of days I’ve attended Accountex in London and I’m exhausted from it! If you read my previous newsletter on management lessons from my fitbit I absolutely smashed my steps over the 2 days and my calories target – I actually burned 4,000 calories on day 1 from walking around. It really is on a huge scale!
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written by alastair barlow [blog]
I’ve had a personal trainer for about 18 months now – he’s awesome. We’ve worked hard together (more so me!) to shift some of the fat I put on post ankle surgery (invasive micro-fracture surgery on my ankle where my cartilage had pretty much disintegrated). It turns out running is not that great for you after all!
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If you follow us on social media you’ve probably seen we recently came back from our annual flinder Takes The Piste! ski trip. It was pretty epic, as you can see from some of the pictures and videos.
guest written by darren cran [blog]
Getting a business off the ground often means skimping on avoidable expenses, but there comes a time when it makes sense to invest in a few important upgrades.
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guest written by conrad ford [blog]
A business’s capital is affected by many moving parts, so it’s hard to always keep track of your cashflow, especially if you’re a non finance person.
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hosted by alastair barlow & luke streeter
culture is important to us and so is having shared values with our clients. here’s a sneak peak at the culture within flinder at our client & staff ski trip to morzine, france. hopefully, you can join us next year! […]
guest written by conrad ford [blog]
There are many obstacles businesses need to conquer to succeed. From setup and survival, to stability and expansion — one of the biggest challenges at every stage is cashflow.
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written by chris agnew & maryna irzhanenko [blog]
Think of a company strategy day and you think of sitting in a dingy conference room somewhere, listening to someone’s monotonous tone read slide after slide from a dated PowerPoint presentation.
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guest written by conrad ford [blog]
The business finance market has changed a lot in the last few years. It’s well known that after the financial crisis, high street banks reduced their lending to small and medium sized businesses, and alternative providers emerged to fill this lending gap.
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written by alastair barlow [blog]
this is the follow on article from 11 sections to the perfect business plan – part 1 & part 2 where I describe these sections in detail; business strategy, finances and risks.
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