FEI Weekly

November 8, 2018

Do you know what "DLT" is? The danger of best practices, and an accounting fraud cautionary tale.

It's Time to Stop Calling it 'Blockchain'

Fortune

A new report from Forrester Research says the buzz around blockchain is so over-hyped that some companies are dropping the word altogether. According to Forrester, firms are ditching the b-word in favor of “DLT,” which is shorthand for distributed ledger technology—a more descriptive, if less catchy, term.

The Danger of Best Practices

Knowledge @ Wharton

According to Strategy and innovation consultants Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach, when things change on a linear basis and you can predict the way that things are likely to turn out in the future, operating the same way is a good way of being successful. However, when change accelerates and we can no longer rely on the lessons of the past to do things well, that’s where best practices become really dangerous.

An Accounting Fraud Cautionary Tale

PYMNTS.com

Aegean Marine Petroleum has filed for bankruptcy in the wake of a $300 million theft. The money was found by an investigation by the shipping firm’s board to have been stolen by founder Dimitris Melissanidis. The board itself had been refashioned six months ago, when an activist-investor group gained seats and pointed to mismanagement of resources.

This Big Four Firm is Banning Non-Audit Work

Sky News

KPMG told its 625 UK partners on Thursday that it would phase out all but essential non-audit services for the 90 FTSE-350 companies where it serves as the auditor. The commitment is a significant one, and if adopted more widely across the 'big four' firms would potentially affect revenue earned each year by the quartet of Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC.

3 Traits Microsoft's CEO Looks for in Leaders

Quartz

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella looks for these three things in job candidates: The ability to create clarity when none exists, a knack for sparking energy, and an ability to succeed in “an over-constrained space.” "Life is an over-constraint problem," he says. "So you can’t say, ‘You know what, I’m just waiting for you to remove all the constraints, and I’ll be perfect.’"