management in practice assignment 3

10 Essential Managerial Skills and How to Develop Them

Discover the skills you need to be effective in a manager position and get tips for developing your managerial skills.

Effective management requires various key skills, from good communication and conflict management to strategic thinking. Knowing what managerial skills you need and how to develop them can help you become a better manager. This guide identifies ten essential skills managers need, clearly explaining what management is, why good management matters, and how you can benefit from being a manager.

What is management?

In business, management refers to supervising employees and overseeing day-to-day operations to meet an organization's goals and objectives. Managers need to have a deep knowledge of their particular industry, which means having some level of business expertise.

Empower teams with access to world-class content from 325+ top companies and universities

How does good management benefit a company?

Good management helps ensure an organization's success in several ways. These include:

Planning: Good managers plan strategies to achieve company goals.

Organization: Good managers know about company resources and how to allocate them.

Direction: Good managers know how to direct and motivate employees.

Control: Good managers ensure employees execute tasks and make changes when needed.

Read more: 8 Management Styles in Business: Choosing the Best Fit

What are some benefits of being a manager?

No matter what industry you choose, being a manager has certain benefits. Typically, managers get to enjoy the following benefits:

Get to be involved in making important decisions at work 

Enjoy some control over what work they do and when and how they work on it

Spend a good deal of time in collaboration with other people and working with teams

Enjoy opportunities for job-related learning and development

Have many options for career advancement within or outside of the workplace

Receive a good salary and benefits

Learn from the best

Lower training cost with in-demand content and trusted credentials from 325+ top companies and universities.

10 skills every manager should have

Managing companies and employees effectively takes a specific skill set. To build your managerial expertise, consider attaining these skills:

1. Ability to delegate

As a manager, the ability to delegate can offer you a variety of benefits. First, sharing tasks with others saves you time at work and reduces your stress levels. Delegating also engages and empowers your employees, helps build their skill sets, and boosts productivity in the workplace.

2. Ability to inspire and motivate

Employees depend on managers for support and guidance. By providing goals and objectives and a clear vision for how to meet them, you can keep employees motivated to perform their best. Other ways to inspire and motivate employees include finding ways to make work more engaging and rewarding and providing positive and helpful feedback.

3. Conflict-management

Workplaces typically have occasional conflicts, so knowing how to navigate them makes managing easier. This skill involves identifying the cause or causes of conflicts and coming up with quick and effective remedies.

4. Decision-making

Decision-making involves identifying an issue, weighing options, and taking action. The ability to make decisions can save time, boost productivity, build trust, and reduce confusion in the workplace.

5. Effective communication

Being a manager involves interacting with people regularly. On any given day, you might run a staff meeting, make a presentation to board members, or resolve a conflict between two employees. In addition to conveying information, listening when communicating is essential. Practicing good listening helps you be present, maintain eye contact, and paraphrase what your speaker says.

6. Emotional intelligence

If you can manage your emotions and help manage the emotions of others, chances are you have emotional intelligence. Emotionally intelligent managers often have empathy for others, a sense of self-awareness, an ability to think before speaking or acting, and a high degree of resilience.

7. Flexibility

Roadblocks pop up in any workplace, and good managers know how to get around them. Flexibility involves finding multiple ways to manage a team, complete a task, or solve a problem.

8. Organization

As a manager, you may have much to handle at once, including tasks, reports, meetings, projects, and presentations. Good organizational skills can help. These include goal setting, scheduling, time management, and recordkeeping.

9. Problem-solving

Problem-solving goes hand-in-hand with decision-making. The process involves identifying a problem, weighing solutions, choosing the best one, and evaluating whether or not it works. Managers who are good problem solvers have an easier time meeting company goals and objectives.

10. Strategic thinking

Managers who can strategically think offer great value to companies. Strategic thinking involves the following:

Analyzing data to come up with strategies

Creating strategies for meeting company goals and objectives

Thinking of ways to implement strategies

Directing others in the completion of goal-related tasks

Communicating the results to company stakeholders

Ways to develop managerial skills

Gaining new skills or improving the ones you have can help you be more successful in a management position. Whether you're a current manager or hoping to become one, consider these tips for developing management skills:

Seek advice and guidance from a mentor.

Read books about management theories, techniques, and styles.

Think about areas you need to improve, set goals, and take steps to achieve them.

Go back to school and get a certificate or a degree.

Attend industry-related training, conferences, and workshops. 

Practice skills like active listening, delegating, and organization.

Join a public speaking group or take a public speaking or business writing class.

Look for opportunities to be a leader at work, home, class, or through volunteering or sports.

Develop people management skills.

You’ll ideally concentrate on developing specific people management skills. By focusing on specific competencies, you can build higher competency levels in each area compared to a general competency approach.  Enrolling in professional development courses is a great way to learn new management techniques and improve your existing skills. 

You might also want to find a mentor or business coach to guide you on competency gaps and how to refine them. Asking other managers for feedback or advice is another great way to learn more about yourself—and what you need to do to improve as a manager.

Next steps: Getting started with Coursera

To develop current management skills or pick up new ones, consider taking the Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Coursera. You'll learn how to build good relationships in the workplace, lead teams, and inspire employee motivation and engagement. You'll also discover principles, theories, and frameworks to help you manage employees more effectively and explore long-term business and corporate strategy. At the end of the course, you'll participate in a capstone project where you can apply everything you've learned and receive a shareable career certificate.

Develop leaders from within your workforce

Let's work together to build lasting leadership skills for your organization.

This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

Management Skills Application Exercises

• During this and your other courses, there will likely be products of your and team-based assignments that can illustrate specific competencies such as the ability to prepare a spreadsheet application, write programming code, or show your communication abilities that demonstrate your skills in a video. It is a good practice to catalog and save these artifacts in a portfolio that will be a useful in demonstrating your skills in future job interviews.
• Time management is an important skill that will impact your future as a manager. You can categorize the time that you spend as either required or discretionary. You can assess your time management skills by keeping track of your time using a schedule calendar and breaking down the time devoted to each activity over a week. After a week of logging the activity, note whether each activity was required or discretionary and whether the time was used productively or unproductively using a 10-point scale in which 10 is very productive and 1 is completely unproductive. Now write up a plan on how to manage your time by coming up with a list of what to start doing and stop doing and what you can do to manage your discretionary time more productively.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction

• Authors: David S. Bright, Anastasia H. Cortes
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Principles of Management
• Publication date: Mar 20, 2019
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-management/pages/1-management-skills-application-exercises

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

• Username or email  *
• Password  *

Remember me

Lost your password?

• Email address  *
• Username  *
• Confirm Password  *

Want to become an instructor?

• 5HR03 Assignment Example
• CIPD Level 5

Assessment Questions

1) Evaluate the principles of reward and its importance to organisational culture and performance management. (AC 1.1)

2) Explain how policy initiatives and practices are implemented. (AC 1.2)

3) Explain how people and organisational performance can impact on the approach to reward. (AC 1.3)

4) Compare two different types of benefits offered by organisations and the merits of each. (AC 1.4)

5) Assess the contribution of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to improving employee contribution and sustained organisational performance. (AC 1.5)

6) Assess the business context of the reward environment. (AC 2.1)

7) Evaluate the most appropriate ways in which benchmarking data can be gathered and measured to develop insight. (AC 2.2)

8) Explain how organisations use insight to develop reward packages and approaches. (AC 2.3)

This task requires you to provide understanding of the role that people professionals undertake in supporting line managers to make reward decisions.

9) Explain the legislative requirements that impact reward practice. (AC 2.4)

10) Assess different approaches to performance management. (AC 3.1)

11) Review the role of people practice in supporting line managers to make consistent and appropriate reward judgements. (AC 3.2)

12) Explain how line managers make reward judgements based on organisational approaches to reward. (AC 3.3)

• 5HR03 Reward for performance and contribution

• CIPD Level 3
• CIPD Level 7

+44 2871140060

[email protected]

Image Disclaimer:

The images used on this website are not our own and are solely utilised for research purposes. Any credit for these images belongs to their rightful copyright owners. We do not claim ownership or authorship of any images displayed on this website. If you believe that any image used here infringes upon your copyright, please contact us immediately, and we will promptly remove it or provide proper attribution as per your request.

Content Disclaimer:

The papers shared on this platform are provided for reference purposes only. Users are strictly advised against submitting these papers to any educational institution or academic platform for grading or assessment purposes.

© 2024 CIPD Modules. All rights Reserved.

• Privacy policy
• Refund and Returns Policy

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

3.3 Assignment

Nursing team members receive assignments at the start of their shift. Assignment  refers to routine care, activities, and procedures that are within the authorized scope of practice of the RN or LPN/VN or routine functions of the assistive personnel. [1] Assistive personnel (AP) are defined as certified nursing assistants (CNA), client care technicians (PCT), certified medical assistants (CMA), certified medication aides, and home health aides. [2] See Table 3.3a for a description of the typical scope of practice and common tasks performed by members of the nursing team. These tasks are within the traditional role that the team member has acquired through a basic educational program and are the expectation of the hiring agency during a shift of work. Keep in mind that scope of practice is defined by each state’s Nurse Practice Act. Agency policy can be more restrictive than the Nurse Practice Act but cannot be less restrictive.

Assignments are typically made by the charge nurse or nurse supervisor from the previous shift. A charge nurse is an RN who provides leadership on a hospital unit within a health care facility during their shift. Charge nurses perform many of the tasks that general nurses do, but also have some supervisory duties such as making assignments, delegating tasks, preparing schedules, monitoring admissions and discharges, and serving as a staff member resource. [3]

Table 3.3a Nursing Team Members’ Scope of Practice and Common Tasks [4]

An example of a patient assignment is when an RN assigns an LPN to care for a client with stable heart failure. The LPN collects assessment data, monitors intake/output throughout the shift, and administers routine oral medication. The LPN documents this information and reports information back to the RN. This is considered the LPN’s “assignment” because the skills are taught within an LPN educational program and are consistent with the state’s Nursing Practice Act for LPN scope of practice. They are also included in the unit’s job description for an LPN. The RN may also assign this client to a CNA to help provide assistance with tasks that are allowed within the CNA scope. These tasks may include assistance with personal hygiene, toileting, and ambulation. The CNA documents these tasks as they are completed and reports information back to the RN. These tasks are considered the CNA’s assignment because they are taught within a nursing assistant educational program, are consistent with the nursing assistant scope of practice, and are included in the job description for this unit’s nursing assistant role.

Special consideration is required for advanced assistive personnel roles. With increased staffing needs, skills such as administering medications, inserting Foley catheters, or performing injections are included in specialized training programs for assistant personnel. Due to the impact these skills can have on the outcome and safety of the client, the National Council of State Board of Nursing (NCSBN) recommends these activities be considered delegated tasks by the RN or nurse leader. By delegating these advanced skills when appropriate, the nurse validates competency, provides supervision, and maintains accountability for client outcomes. Read more about delegation in the “ Delegation ” subsection of this chapter.

When making assignments to other nursing team members, it is essential for the RN to keep in mind specific tasks that cannot be delegated to other nursing team members. These tasks include, but are not limited to, those tasks described in Table 3.3b.

Table 3.3b Examples of Tasks Outside the Scope of Practice of Nursing Assistive Personnel

As always, refer to the state’s Nurse Practice Act for specific details about nursing team members’ scope of practice. See the following box for an example of the scope of practice for RNs and LPNs according to Wisconsin’s Nurse Practice Act.

Read more information about scope and standards of practice for RNs and LPNs in Wisconsin’s Nurse Practice Act, Chapter N6 PDF.

• American Nurses Association and NCSBN. (2019). National guidelines for nursing delegation . https://www.ncsbn.org/NGND-PosPaper_06.pdf ↵
• RegisteredNursing.org. (2021, April 13). What is a charge nurse? https://www.registerednursing.org/specialty/charge-nurse/ ↵
• RegisteredNursing.org. (2021, January 27). Assignment, delegation and supervision: NCLEX-RN. https://www.registerednursing.org/nclex/assignment-delegation-supervision/ ↵
• State of Wisconsin Department of Health Services. (2018). Medication administration by unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP): Guidelines for registered nurses delegating medication administration to unlicensed assistive personnel. https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/p01908.pdf ↵

Routine care, activities, and procedures that are within the authorized scope of practice of the RN, LPN/VN, or routine functions of the assistive personnel.

Leadership and Management of Nursing Care Copyright © 2022 by Kim Belcik and Open Resources for Nursing is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

3.3: Assignment- Mission Impact on Business Practice and Employee Behavior

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 47628
• Lumen Learning

\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\)

\( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\)

\( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\)

\( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} \)

Preparation

Our text introduced a number of foundational business management concepts and related terminology. The module also discussed the operational significance of these concepts. In this exercise, you will have an opportunity to explore the way an organization’s mission, vision and values influence their business practices and employee behavior—or not!

• Select a business or organization that you’re familiar with and conduct research to determine their stated mission, vision and values.
• Reflect on your experience with the company/organization. Do the statements ring true or hollow? That is, do their business practices reflect the stated mission, vision and values?
• Write a brief post identifying your selected organization’s mission, vision and values and your opinion on the validity of the statements. Support your position with a specific example based on your personal experience or research. As always, include links to sources cited.

Contributors and Attributions

• Assignment: Mission Impact on Business Practice and Employee Behavior. Authored by : Nina Burokas. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

Course Resources

Assignments.

The assignments in this course are openly licensed, and are available as-is, or can be modified to suit your students’ needs. Selected answer keys are available to faculty who adopt Waymaker, OHM, or Candela courses with paid support from Lumen Learning. This approach helps us protect the academic integrity of these materials by ensuring they are shared only with authorized and institution-affiliated faculty and staff.

If you import this course into your learning management system (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.), the assignments will automatically be loaded into the assignment tool.

Sun City Boards Assignments and Discussions

Half of the written assignments and discussions are based on a case study, whose focus is a fictional high-end surfboard company, Sun City Boards, which is also highlighted in the Why It Matters and Putting it Together in Module 3: Planning and Mission. Many of these assignments take the form of asking students to give Tom, the company’s inexperienced owner, advice about how he can run his business more effectively. The Sun City Boards assignments create a common framework for applying knowledge and skills developed through the course, encouraging students to demonstrate mastery of the content through real-world tasks and work products.

Alternate Assignments and Discussions

The other half of the written assignments and discussions use a variety of approaches, depending on the subject and learning outcome being assessed; many ask students to go beyond course content to form connections between research topics and what they’ve learned in class.

Using Assignments

We recommend assigning one discussion OR one assignment per chapter, rather than all of them. Some instructors prefer to stick with the Sun City Boards theme throughout the course; others like to use some of the alternates along the way. You can view any assignments or discussions below or throughout the course.

You can view them below or throughout the course:

Rubric for Assignments

There is also a sample rubric to assist you in grading. Instructors may modify these guidelines or use their own.

Open Pedagogy Assignments

Open Pedagogy Assignments are assignments in which students use their agency and creativity to create knowledge artifacts that can support their own learning, their classmates’ learning, and the learning of students around the world. (See this  peer-reviewed article  for more details.) All of the assignments can be created with a cell phone camera or any video recording device, Google or Word documents, and your learning management system.

Discussions

The following discussion assignments will also be preloaded (into the discussion-board tool) in your learning management system if you import the course. They can be used as is, modified, or removed. You can view them below or throughout the course.

Rubric for Discussion Posts

• This discussion invites conversation on race, which might require additional monitoring and involvement from instructors. This blog post from the Choices Program at Brown University contains links to helpful resources to facilitate talking about race in the classroom: "Approaching Race in the Classroom, Actively" ↵
• Assignments. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Pencil Cup. Authored by : IconfactoryTeam. Provided by : Noun Project. Located at : https://thenounproject.com/term/pencil-cup/628840/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

AGA Clinical Practice Update on Evaluation and Management of Belching, Abdominal Bloating, and Distention: Expert Review

Affiliations.

• 1 Atrium Health, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Wake Forest Medical University, Charlotte, North Carolina. Electronic address: [email protected].
• 2 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Rome Foundation, Raleigh, North Carolina; Drossman Gastroenterology, Durham, North Carolina.
• 3 Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, New York.
• PMID: 37452811
• DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2023.04.039

Description: Belching, bloating, and abdominal distention are all highly prevalent gastrointestinal symptoms and account for some of the most common reasons for patient visits to outpatient gastroenterology practices. These symptoms are often debilitating, affecting patients' quality of life, and contributing to work absenteeism. Belching and bloating differ in their pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management, and there is limited evidence available for their various treatments. Therefore, the purpose of this American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Clinical Practice Update is to provide best practice advice based on both controlled trials and observational data for clinicians covering clinical features, diagnostics, and management considerations that include dietary, gut-directed behavioral, and drug therapies.

Methods: This Expert Review was commissioned and approved by the AGA Institute Clinical Practice Updates Committee and the AGA Governing Board to provide timely guidance on a topic of high clinical importance to the AGA membership, and underwent internal peer review by the Clinical Practice Updates Committee and external peer review through standard procedures of Gastroenterology. These best practice advice statements were drawn from a review of the published literature based on clinical trials, the more robust observational studies, and from expert opinion. Because systematic reviews were not performed, these best practice advice statements do not carry formal ratings regarding the quality of evidence or strength of the presented considerations. Best Practice Advice Statements BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 1: Clinical history and physical examination findings and impedance pH monitoring can help to differentiate between gastric and supragastric belching. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 2: Treatment options for supragastric belching may include brain-gut behavioral therapies, either separately or in combination, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, diaphragmatic breathing, speech therapy, and central neuromodulators. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 3: Rome IV criteria should be used to diagnose primary abdominal bloating and distention. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 4: Carbohydrate enzyme deficiencies may be ruled out with dietary restriction and/or breath testing. In a small subset of at-risk patients, small bowel aspiration and glucose- or lactulose-based hydrogen breath testing may be used to evaluate for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 5: Serologic testing may rule out celiac disease in patients with bloating and, if serologies are positive, a small bowel biopsy should be done to confirm the diagnosis. A gastroenterology dietitian should be part of the multidisciplinary approach to care for patients with celiac disease and nonceliac gluten sensitivity. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 6: Abdominal imaging and upper endoscopy should be ordered in patients with alarm features, recent worsening symptoms, or an abnormal physical examination only. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 7: Gastric emptying studies should not be ordered routinely for bloating and distention, but may be considered if nausea and vomiting are present. Whole gut motility and radiopaque transit studies should not be ordered unless other additional and treatment-refractory lower gastrointestinal symptoms exist to warrant testing for neuromyopathic disorders. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 8: In patients with abdominal bloating and distention thought to be related to constipation or difficult evacuation, anorectal physiology testing is suggested to rule out a pelvic floor disorder. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 9: When dietary modifications are needed (eg, low-fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols diet), a gastroenterology dietitian should preferably monitor treatment. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 10: Probiotics should not be used to treat abdominal bloating and distention. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 11: Biofeedback therapy may be effective for bloating and distention when a pelvic floor disorder is identified. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 12: Central neuromodulators (eg, antidepressants) are used to treat bloating and abdominal distention by reducing visceral hypersensitivity, raising sensation threshold, and improving psychological comorbidities. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 13: Medications used to treat constipation should be considered for treating bloating if constipation symptoms are present. BEST PRACTICE ADVICE 14: Psychological therapies, such as hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and other brain-gut behavior therapies may be used to treat patients with bloating and distention. BEST PRACTICE 15: Diaphragmatic breathing and central neuromodulators are used to treat abdominophrenic dyssynergia.

Keywords: Belching; Bloating; Distention; Gas; Hiccups.

Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publication types

• Practice Guideline
• Celiac Disease*
• Constipation / diagnosis
• Constipation / therapy
• Dilatation, Pathologic
• Pelvic Floor Disorders*
• Quality of Life
• United States

More From Forbes

Leveraging ai in finance—move from theory to practice.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

I’ve talked to several CFOs recently about AI, and a prevailing theme has emerged from our conversations. We all know there is great interest in the promise of AI. Now it’s time to put that promise into action, and finance leaders are searching for the best AI use cases to deliver near- and long-term value.

Leveraging AI In finance—move from theory to practice

Last year, I encouraged CFOs to get curious about generative AI (GenAI) technologies. It is now time to shift that focus to higher-impact and practical GenAI (and other AI) use cases while rethinking widely held GenAI assumptions related to governance, tools and talent. And CFOs are starting to act.

My firm’s latest global survey of CFOs and finance leaders shows that the two most prevalent uses of GenAI by finance groups involve 1) compliance and regulatory reporting, and 2) risk assessment and risk management. Our experience also shows that two other uses of GenAI—throughout the order-to-cash cycle and in expense management initiatives—are delivering lucrative returns over the long term.

Compliance and risk management use cases

There is a reason why GenAI is gaining some traction in compliance and risk management. Simply stated, the benefits of deploying AI tools to strengthen these activities are proving to be well worth the investment.

For example, finance groups are currently deploying GenAI tools to complete standard compliance forms and bolster fraud detection and protection. AI’s ability to scrutinize vast data sets and then identify anomalies and predict trends gives finance groups, compliance teams, and data privacy and security groups an opportunity to get a jump on fraudulent activity. Predictive detection helps retailers reduce shrinkage and bolster loss prevention efforts. Insurers leverage AI to respond quickly to suspicious variations in claim patterns. CISOs can spot privacy breaches as they occur, and companies in cyclical industries use AI to detect and address peculiar purchasing patterns.

Cannes Film Festival 2024: Stars Arrive On Red Carpet For Annual Event

Televisaunivision 2024-25 slate touts latino culture, vix growth, juanpa zurita, william levy deals, judge says up to 20 million fintech depositors are at risk from synapse bankruptcy.

The value of these applications resides in the speed and precision of anomaly detection. For example, from a risk management and resilience perspective, consider the advantages of being able to respond to a data privacy lapse within hours as opposed to a month or two after the breach occurs and the damage has spread.

Two practical finance use cases to prioritize

In addition to compliance and risk management, AI’s predictive capabilities can pinpoint valuable opportunities to grow revenue, enhance the customer experience (and customer value), improve profitability via cost optimization and enhance communications with the board and analysts. Here are just some of the activities we’re seeing in the market that are driving improved performance and value.

1. Budgeting, forecasting and cash flow management

AI can improve a range of forecasting activities throughout the order-to-cash cycle to deliver major cash flow management improvements. Feeding preliminary sales data into an AI application enables it to analyze patterns to produce long-term revenue projections that finance and sales teams can use to adjust revenue assurance activities. On the demand side, finance groups and operations partners can leverage AI to alert trading partners about current and (likely future) fluctuations in sales volumes, enabling suppliers to adjust their production and ordering proactively. AI-driven sensitivity analyses can help finance assess interest rate changes, supply chain obstructions and other external wildcards that affect profitability, including the cost of goods sold.

In addition to those revenue and cost-predictive AI driven and developed data points, some of the more impressive uses of AI equip finance groups with a deeper understanding of customer behaviors—insights that help drive order-to-cash transformation and improve cash flow. By leveraging AI to understand payment behaviors (e.g., when and how customers pay), finance and accounting teams can adjust customer onboarding processes, collection efforts and other accounts receivable activities to increase cash flow. Such AI-driven analyses also shed new light on customer value (i.e., who qualifies as a truly valuable customer), which can lead to more profitable customer segmentation and retention activities. And companies can adjust their own payment timing accordingly to align inbound and outbound cash flows.

2. Expense management and cost optimization

When organizations leverage AI to scrutinize expenses, they have the opportunity to enhance third-party spending, sourcing management, IT rationalization and other targets of cost optimization. Do you want to reduce operating costs by 10%? AI-driven tools can run profitability analyses that diagnose which areas are best suited for cost reductions, such as those goods the enterprise is procuring six different ways at 10 different price points. The AI solution could even assist finance in presenting the data using appropriate visualization techniques.

Everyone agrees that data-informed decisions are often the best decisions and that insightful data can enable anticipatory behavior. What’s key with AI models is that they can advance the analytics that can be used to facilitate decisions and preparedness. The limitless possibilities encourage experimentation by empowered individuals. For example, McKinsey suggests uploading publicly available earnings call transcripts from competitors and prompting the AI tool to list the five most-frequently-asked questions and to suggest responses. The company’s and its competitors’ financials could also be uploaded and the GenAI solution could be prompted to apply the perspective of an activist investor to address questions regarding aspects of the company’s performance that would catch an activist’s attention.

Try out ideas like these and the value of GenAI becomes clearer.

Other aspects of AI to reconsider

As CFOs evaluate where they can apply AI next to derive measurable and meaningful value, they should also take a fresh look at:

• Tools: In today’s well-funded AI and GenAI marketplace, seemingly countless vendors are selling new and enhanced tools and capabilities. But finance leaders should first consider their existing systems and applications. ERP vendors have added ample AI functionalities to their solutions over the past 18 months, as have sellers of stand-alone applications that exist within ERP ecosystems.
• Governance : Many, if not most, organizations are still struggling to establish clear governance and guidelines for using AI. Defining appropriate governance for an AI solution is critical. Steps should include creating an AI advisory board; identifying potential use cases, the expected value delivered and potential risks; aligning the organization’s existing governance framework, policies, standards and controls to the selected use cases; ensuring that the company’s IP is protected; and educating users.
• Return on investment: Addressing and monitoring the ROI on GenAI and AI use cases requires a nuanced approach. The short-term returns on these pilots may be negligible, yet longer-term payoffs can be substantial. While finance should certainly not “do AI for AI’s sake,” business cases should look beyond short-term gains to address how these investments support longer-term plans, objectives and performance. Other organizations have deployed AI and rushed to declare victory. A more prudent approach is to monitor the extent to which these efforts achieve defined business outcomes.

Finally, talent also requires a fresh perspective. Conventional wisdom holds that organizations have to invest in data scientists and GenAI experts in order to get into the AI game. That’s often not the case when it comes to finance-driven AI initiatives. Your organization may have more AI expertise than you realize. By having the ability to adapt finance roles to add AI usage and upskill or reskill team members, you can generate positive morale and retention impacts for the finance team’s personnel complement. And most of the use cases I’ve discussed here can be performed using the AI functionality in existing ERP systems, procurement platforms and accounting applications. As long as finance groups have access to cost optimization, risk management, forecasting and budgeting expertise, they can implement practical AI use cases and make noteworthy progress right now on their respective AI journeys.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

This article is part of the research topic.

Balancing Macronutrients in Athletes

Carbohydrate beliefs and practices of ultra-endurance runners in Ireland for gastrointestinal symptom management Provisionally Accepted

• 1 School of Science and Computing, Atlantic Technological University, Ireland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the carbohydrate beliefs and practices of ultra-endurance runners in Ireland to gain an understanding of their gastrointestinal symptom (GIS) management strategies. Methodology: An adapted version of a previously developed and validated questionnaire was distributed online to ultra-endurance runners, recognised as those who completed a single bout of exercise lasting four or more hours. Questions related to carbohydrate awareness and sourcing, and dietary practices, particularly in relation to gastrointestinal symptom management. Results: A total of n=68 individuals completed the adapted questionnaire. Of these, n=1 was excluded due to their reporting of an ulcerative colitis diagnosis. The remaining participants included n=46 males and n=21 females. Personal previous experience was the main source directing participants’ nutrition practices (n=30) while only n=3 quoted sourcing information from qualified professionals. n=42 participants experienced GIS, usually equally around training and competition times. Many participants had not previously implemented any specific dietary or non-dietary strategies to alleviate exercise-induced GIS. Supplementing with nitrates (n=9) and probiotics (n=4) were the most common dietary practices to alleviate GIS, while other (n=14) and portion control (n=13) were the most reported non-dietary practice. Discussion: Akin to previous similar literature, these findings suggests that GIS are prevalent in the ultra-endurance running community, regardless of whether during training or an event. Similarly, this research highlights the vast range of GIS experienced by this population. However, the absence in both dietary and non-dietary related practices employed for GIS management alludes to a current deficit in the availability of nutrition information specific to this problem. Further research is required to understand the mechanisms behind ultra-endurance associated GIS and its various management strategies as well as best practices for communicating these to the target audience to reduce individuals risks of developing long-term, chronic health complications

Keywords: nutrition, Ultra-Endurance, gastrointestinal, dietary habits, Running

Received: 27 Mar 2024; Accepted: 13 May 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Ryan, Daly and Ryan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Dr. Lisa Ryan, School of Science and Computing, Atlantic Technological University, Galway, County Dublin, Ireland

People also looked at