Cosmo Tech | The Decision Twin Platform for Supply Chain, Finance & Asset Leaders at Fortune 500 Scale | Simulate Tomorrow. Decide Today.

Over the past 30 years, I’ve led sales teams at fast-growing Tech & SaaS companies — to rebuild and refine the strategies and systems so sales teams can scale and drive revenue growth.

In recent roles, I was able:

- double revenue while EBITDA grew 400%
- drive a +34% YoY revenue growth

Today I’m working with Cosmo Tech to help enterprises simulate the future for faster decisions, better systems, and maximum opportunity.

That means: 

- Quantum-level decision making
- Complex system resiliency
- Future-proof roadmap

“Steve is “Instant Offense” for sales. This is very rare and very valuable. He’s truly world class at quickly creating and running strategic, data-driven sales teams to drive growth. Great at strategy and wading into the minutiae to uncover and fix and optimize the team and process.

He’s a great leader with great judgment who makes it fun to work on the most difficult challenges. He and I have worked together on two companies that were great successes.”

— Jeff O'Mara, General Manager EKAHAU/ CEO, Healthentic.

Feel free to join my newsletter below — you’ll get all my best systems and strategies for scaling sales into the future. 

Join my newsletter at www.salesgss.com/newsletter

Trying to figure out where to start to double sales in 2025? Click on my "FREE Sales Accelerator Assessment" www.salesgss.com/assessment

Steve Litzow

A 17-year-old enterprise tech company went from $25M to $65M in revenue without changing their team, market, or product strategy.

Here's what actually drove the transformation:
Revenue: $25M → $65M (160% growth) 
Recurring Revenue: $5M → $30M (6× increase) 
EBITDA margins: 20% → 50% 
Product velocity: 1 release every 4 years → 4 per year

When I ask CEOs what they think enabled this kind of growth, they usually say: 
"Better talent? Bigger pipeline? New market positioning?"

None of the above.

It was implementing a High-Intensity Rhythm of Business (HI-ROB).

Here's what it looked like in practice:
Daily 15-minute standups focused on:
- Pipeline movement (what changed overnight)
- Yesterday's activity vs. plan
- Today's activity commitments
- What's closing today + backup options

Weekly cross-functional reviews where every team reports using the same metrics, same format, same cadence.

The insight most teams miss: Elite execution isn't about having better people. 

It's about building systems that surface problems in 24 hours instead of 30 days.

That time compression is what separates:
- Forecast accuracy from CFO discounts
- Pipeline visibility from month-end surprises
- Revenue growth from revenue hope

The companies scaling predictably right now aren't necessarily the ones with the best talent. 

They're the ones with the best operating systems. 

salesgss.com/newsletter

Your sales team has 200+ hours of PMF intelligence.
Your product team sees maybe 5% of it.

That gap is killing your velocity.

Sales hears every objection, every “not yet,” every competitive blindside.
Product never sees most of it.

That’s where PMF actually erodes — in the gap between Sales intelligence and Product velocity.

And the fix isn’t another roadmap meeting.

It’s a bi-weekly execution ritual:
Sales brings: Top 3 deal blockers
Product maps: Clear ship windows
CEO enforces: Ruthless scope discipline
15 minutes. Twice a month.

This loop eliminates the three silent killers:
- Roadmap drift
- Ship-date ambiguity
- Competitive feature surprises

One company I worked with went from 1 release every 4 years → 4 releases per year using this exact loop.

Result: 2× revenue and expansion from a niche tool to a mainstream IT platform.

The data backs it up:
Elite product teams ship with 76% success  --  Average teams sit at 51%

That 25-point gap compounds into years of competitive advantage (or decline).

With Q1 planning six weeks away, now is the moment to fix your Sales → Product loop before you lock next year’s roadmap.

Product-market fit isn’t a milestone — it’s a 90-day referendum.

Full framework + the Q1 implementation plan is in this week’s SalesGSS newsletter.
Link in comments. 👇

Couldn’t agree more with Phillip — the ability to anticipate, not just react, is what separates leaders today.

Simulation is already helping our customers cut decision cycles, reduce risk, and move with confidence.

CEO at Cosmo Tech I Global Business Leader I Chief Technology Officer

Enterprises today face a simple truth: disruption is no longer an occasional event, it’s a constant. Supply shocks, market volatility, and regulatory 

Open article: From Intelligent to Autonomous: How AI-Simulation Unlocks the Self-Learning Enterprise by Phillip Hazen • 2 min read

From Intelligent to Autonomous: How AI-Simulation Unlocks the Self-Learning Enterprise

The new advantage isn’t faster outreach — it’s faster proof.

✅ Days 0–7 (Sales): Define success metric + provision sandbox
✅ Days 8–21 (Product): Automate setup + guide onboarding
✅ Days 22–30 (CS): Deliver one-page ROI snapshot

Track what matters:
• TTFV (Time-to-First-Value) — leading indicator of conversion
• Activation → Expansion Ratio (≤60 days) — proof that value sticks

The teams that show ROI inside 30 days stay alive in deals CFOs can’t kill.

Read the full playbook → salesgss.com/newsletter

#SaaS #SalesStrategy #RevenueGrowth #SalesGSS

Great insight, Philipp.
Transforming Weibull and other reliability models into continuously learning systems through AI simulation is where asset management becomes truly prescriptive. It’s exciting to see this thinking gain momentum across the SAP ecosystem.

Yesterday I shared my first impressions on sessions about Predictive Maintenance, RCM, Asset Maintenance 5.0, and deep dives into data acquisition and diagnostic hardware at the Asset Performance conference. Today, I want to share one idea that really stuck with me—something that could be transformational if applied across the entire asset lifecycle:

Weibull distribution.
It’s a statistical tool that uses failure data from operations—data that’s often easy to get. It doesn’t need huge datasets, and because it’s based on probability distributions, it provides interpretable confidence intervals. That means maintenance experts can use it with confidence.
Of course, it comes with challenges: modeling expertise and thorough data cleansing are essential.

But the opportunities are huge. Startup Cosmo Tech showed a very innovative approach how operational data (e.g. failures, financials, risk) can be used to simulate different maintenance policies and predict their impact on CAPEX, OPEX, or any custom risk KPI you define is relevant for your business. This enables to test strategies before implementing them—using models they can actually understand.

My takeaway: Weibull distribution shouldn’t be a one-time tool for investment decisions. It should be part of a continuous loop:
- Define strategies based on simulations
- Implement and measure performance of such strategies
- Learn from cases where the policies been violates or fails, e.g. when using CBM or RUL predictions missed a failure beyond what is to be expected from a statistical model.

With continuous closed loops to monitor, improve, and optimize your maintenance strategies and operations, it would be possible to unleash the full power of Weibull distribution—or, as a matter of fact, any AI or model-based tool.

Thanks Olivier Blancke & Steven Coates for the insightful demo and nice discussion we had during the conference.

This is how leading utilities are using AI Simulation to prioritize investments, balance risk, and accelerate the energy transition.
Join Cosmo Tech and Groupe E on Dec 2 to see it in practice.

Join us for an insightful webinar with Cosmo Tech and Groupe E on December 2nd.

Ana Nazaré, Strategic Asset Manager at Groupe E, and Maxime Le Pendeven, Key Account Director at Cosmo Tech, will explore how Cosmo Tech AI Simulation empowers Groupe E to 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴, 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘺, 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘦-𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘥 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 - 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴.

Whether you’re managing renewable energy plants, large industrial fleets, or complex infrastructure, this session is for you.

👉 Register here: https://hubs.ly/Q03Rxpwj0

#ai #simulation #assetmanagement #aip #digitaltransformation #innovation #energy #utility

Buyers don’t wait 90 days for ROI anymore.

The window for proof has collapsed — from quarters to weeks.

▪ 78 % of B2B buyers now expect measurable ROI within six months (G2)
▪ Deal slippage nearly doubled year-over-year (Kluster)
▪ Interactive demos lift conversions ≈ 25 % (Navattic)

If your product still takes three months to prove value, you’re already behind competitors who do it in 14 days.

👉 Stop selling platforms. Start selling proof.

This week’s SalesGSS issue breaks down how to:
• Re-engineer your first-value moment
• Turn demos into ROI trials
• Track the 3 KPIs boards now watch

Read here → salesgss.com/newsletter

#B2BSales #SaaS #SalesLeadership #GrowthStrategy

Most B2B tech CEOs think they have a meeting problem.
But the data says something very different.

Only 37% of meetings have an agenda.
Executives say 67% of them fail.
Teams waste 392 hours a year sitting in them.

But here’s the truth:

Meetings aren’t the problem.
Visibility lag is.

If you’re still discovering slippage at the end of the month, you’re already 30 days behind the teams you’re competing with.

Across the $25M–$65M companies I’ve worked inside, the pattern is identical:

Elite teams surface deal risk in 24 hours.
Average teams: 7–14 days.
Struggling teams: after the month closes.

This one gap explains revenue misses more than pipeline size, talent, or marketing.

The companies that scale consistently run a tight Rhythm of Business (ROB):

Daily (15 minutes):
• Pipeline movement
• Yesterday’s activity
• Today’s targets
• Deals closing today
• Backup if #1 slips

Everyone stands.
Cameras on.
Pipeline open.

Weekly:
Every function reports progress on the same goals, using the same metrics, in the same format.

No silos.
No spin.
No surprises.

Slippage is a visibility problem — not a talent problem.
Fix the cadence → fix the outcome.

If you want more on operating cadence, forecasting accuracy, and mid-market sales strategy, subscribe to my weekly newsletter - salesgss.com/newsletter.

The earliest sign your deal is slipping?
A single stakeholder goes silent for 11–14 days.

Across the teams I’ve led and advised, this Silent Thread Indicator is the #1 early warning signal.

When even one stakeholder goes dark for 14 days:
• Decision momentum breaks
• Champion confidence drops
• Parallel blockers emerge
• CFO/IT lose context
• Legal quietly resets the evaluation

Probability of stall increases 6–8X —
even if your champion absolutely loves you.

This is why single-threading kills Q4 forecasts.
You don’t lose because someone said “no.”
You lose because someone stopped saying anything.

Monday rule:
Any deal with a silent thread = at-risk deal.
Don’t wait for the stage to slip.
Re-engage immediately.
––
Full breakdown (and the Q1 2026 multi-threading plan) is in the new SalesGSS Newsletter issue.

linkedin.com/company/getdatabees/

JSESSIONID

li_at

Your prospects aren’t waiting 379 days because your category is complex.
They’re waiting because they can’t see momentum.

In 2025, PMF isn’t something you “achieve.”
It’s something your market re-evaluates every 90 days.

When you go two quarters without visible product news, buyers assume:
“Are they still investing?”
“Are they falling behind competitors?”
“Will this product still matter in 12 months?”

One quiet quarter doesn’t kill deals.
Two quiet quarters trigger the PMF death spiral:
longer cycles → lower win rates → silent champions → stalled pipeline.

Quarterly updates aren’t nice-to-have.
They’re your only defense against ambiguity.

If your deal cycles are extending while your roadmap isn’t shipping visibly every 90 days, that’s not a market problem — it’s a product velocity problem.

If you want the full framework, my latest SalesGSS newsletter is live - www.salesgss.kit.com

Most stalled deals don’t die in competition.

They die in conference rooms you’ll never enter.

Here’s what’s happening across $5M–$50M SaaS teams:
• Buyers spend 83% of the journey without you
• Buying committees: 10–11 stakeholders
• Only 9% of deals are multi-threaded
• Champion turnover: 81%
• Champion leaves → 80% deal loss rate

This is the Single-Thread Death Spiral:
One relationship in a 10-person committee is a gamble — not a forecast.

The simplest diagnostic I know:
How many unique stakeholders are engaged right now in your top 10 opportunities?

Benchmarks:
• 1–2 threads: Critical risk
• 3–4 threads: Baseline safety
• 5+ threads: Elite execution (6X win rate)

Thread count is now a leading indicator — not a “nice to have.”
If half your late-stage pipeline has fewer than 3 threads…
your Q4 number isn’t slipping — it’s already gone.
––
Full breakdown is in today’s SalesGSS newsletter -  https://lnkd.in/gZJeATBP

I help enterprises cut through AI hype and turn it into business value: measurable improvements in cash flow, risk reduction, and stronger customer outcomes.

For 15+ years I’ve led operational change across Fortune 500s and scaleups in Quote-to-Cash, Customer Service, Shared Services, and Data Governance.

Companies call me when processes stall, teams drown in manual workarounds, and leadership needs outcomes they can trust without losing compliance or control. My role is to simplify complexity, automate where it creates value, and ensure governance and results go hand in hand.

I believe AI isn’t just about faster processes. It’s about shifting human effort to what matters: customer outcomes, financial performance, and strategic decision-making.

My background blends Lean Six Sigma discipline with applied AI, RPA, and operational analytics. I’ve delivered multi-region programs that improved cash flow, service levels, and working capital. Every project has been grounded in governance and compliance.

Core focus areas
• AI-enabled Quote-to-Cash optimization
• Governance-ready automation and compliance
• SSC → IIntelligence Hub operating models
• KPI-driven AI strategy

Currently completing an MSc in Applied AI, I take on executive and fractional transformation roles where accountability and delivery matter more than theory.

If you’re looking to modernize workflows, scale AI responsibly, and turn transformation into lasting business value, let’s connect.

Joanna Miler

Over the years, I’ve joined many transformation meetings that started the same way – long lists of tools, vendors, modules, and integrations.

And every time, I found myself asking the same question:

What are we really building: a system or a setup?

In most transformation discussions, the focus drifts quickly toward tools.

Which vendor to choose? Which module to deploy?

But the real foundation, the design logic that defines how people, data, and processes connect, often gets overlooked.

Here’s the reality: Most modern platforms share the same core ingredients.

1/. Machine learning for pattern recognition.
2/. OCR for document extraction.
3/. RPA for reconciliation.

Different logos. Same chemistry.

What separates success from stagnation isn’t the brand name.

It’s how well the architecture aligns with business goals, ensuring traceability, scalability, explainability, and compliance.

Transformation should begin with logic, not licensing.

Define the data flows, governance model, and control points that serve your purpose.

Once that foundation is clear, choosing a platform becomes a strategic step, matching the vendor to the architecture, not the other way around.

Think of it like pharmacology.

The packaging doesn’t heal, the active ingredient does.

In transformation, that active ingredient is architectural coherence.

It decides how components integrate, how data is governed, and how accountability is maintained.

Too many programs rush into deployment or follow brand familiarity. That’s when ROI fades, integration breaks, and ownership blurs.

Security becomes symbolic rather than structural.
Real transformation rests on disciplined architecture —

Traceable processes.
Auditable decisions.
Curated data pools.
Debiased models.

And alignment with frameworks like the EU AI Act or ISO/IEC 42001, or the growing demand for AI sovereignty.

Security, scalability, and sustainability are not optional add-ons.
They are architectural outcomes.

When architecture leads, tools stay interchangeable.

Teams adapt faster. Compliance becomes a catalyst for innovation, not a constraint.

Transformation success depends on one thing: the blueprint beneath the brand.

When your organisation begins its next transformation, what will you design first, the interface or the architecture?

AI Transformation Executive | Quote-to-Cash, Customer Operations & Data Strategy | Driving Scalable, Compliant & Outcome-Focused Change Across Enterprises

You can have 98% accuracy and still miss the KPI that actually matters.

Because most AI training pipelines stop at prediction, not performance.

Think about it.

We train models to classify, segment, detect...but rarely does it influence the levers that impact business outcomes.

That’s where the real gap lies, between data science success and business success.

The Core Problem

Teams define metrics like:

🔻 Precision
🔻 Recall
🔻 F1 Score

…but the CEO is looking for:

👉 Faster collections
👉 Higher conversion
👉 Lower churn
👉 Better NPS

Different languages.
Same data.
Zero alignment.

The Fix: Bridge AI Training to KPIs

1️⃣ Start from the business goal, not the dataset.

Ask: “What are we trying to improve?” before “What can we predict?”

2️⃣ Map every model metric to a business outcome.

Precision ↑ → fewer false escalations → lower cost per collection.

3️⃣ Close the loop.

Feed real business results back into model retraining.

4️⃣ Make explainability non-negotiable.

AI should show why it made a call, not just what it predicted.

When you align AI metrics with KPIs, data science stops being a lab exercise and becomes a growth engine.

Train for impact, not just intelligence.

Because models don’t create value, outcomes do.

If you’re building AI for real-world business performance, not just dashboards, let’s talk.

Every transformation looks flawless on a slide,

Until the human factor starts asking questions.

In large-scale transformation projects, we spend months mapping systems, workflows, and integrations.

Yet, when the architecture is finally ready, the rollout faces resistance, not because of poor design, but because people process change differently.

We’ve seen perfectly built systems slow down because teams weren’t emotionally ready for new ways of working.

The blueprint explained how things would work: not how humans would adapt.

The human side of transformation doesn’t fit neatly into boxes and arrows.

But it determines whether those boxes ever connect in real life.

Here are the key dimensions we often miss while focusing on system design:

1️⃣ Psychological Safety

People adopt change faster when they feel safe to fail, question, and learn.
Governance can’t enforce it, leadership must model it.

2️⃣ Change Energy Mapping

Every organisation has “change accelerators” and “change resistors.”
Mapping emotional energy early helps leaders pace the rollout intelligently.

3️⃣ Communication Rhythms

Transformation fails in silence.
Regular, transparent communication builds alignment faster than dashboards or reports ever could.

4️⃣ Behavioural Feedback Loops

Technology gives visibility, but people need feedback.
Real transformation happens when systems and behaviours evolve together.

5️⃣ Culture by Design

No architecture is complete without cultural touchpoints: rituals, recognition, and reflection mechanisms that sustain momentum after launch.

Results from Experience:

In one client program, integrating these human factors reduced transition friction by 40% and increased adoption velocity across departments.

The architecture didn’t change, the approach to people did.

When you think about transformation, do you design for systems first or with people in mind?

Because the real architecture of change often begins where the diagram ends.

The Human Side of Transformation

Most companies don’t struggle with AI adoption, 

They struggle with scaling it.

Because they treat intelligence as a project, not a platform.

Teams often start with a pilot: one use case here, one tool there.

Each delivers value in isolation, but they don’t connect or compound.

That’s when leaders realise local success ≠ enterprise intelligence.

Real scalability begins when organisations shift from project thinking to platform thinking.

A project delivers outputs.

A platform delivers capabilities: reusable data pipelines, governance layers, standardised APIs, and cross-team interoperability.

Here are some data-backed signs of what scaling looks (and what failing to scale feels) like:

- 72 % of organisations report using AI in at least one business function.

- Less than one-third of companies report following the majority of best practices required for scaling AI. 

- Leading companies that scale AI effectively embed technical enablers: e.g., feature stores, standardised protocols, MLOps platforms.

Here are a few examples:

1/. A major manufacturer moved beyond isolated use cases to automate entire production lines, treating each line as part of one scalable platform.

2/. A global bank used a centrally led operating model for generative AI, then rolled it out across risk, compliance, operations, not just marketing.

When every team plugs into the same intelligent backbone, AI stops being a bunch of siloed projects, it becomes a strategic advantage.

That’s how leaders turn isolated wins into enterprise-wide intelligence.

It’s the difference between having ten smart models and one smart organisation.

Also, platform thinking reduces redundant work and shortens time to value because teams don’t rebuild core capabilities from scratch.

What does your AI foundation look like right now, a collection of pilots, or a platform built to scale?

Because in the next decade, the winners won’t just use AI. 

They’ll scale it.

Your data doesn’t lie. 

But can you prove who last told the truth?

Most data challenges don’t begin with privacy, they begin with ownership.
When no one can trace who changed what or why, governance loses its foundation.

Strong governance starts when every decision, edit, and update has a clear origin.

Clarity creates trust and trust accelerates decision-making.

At Procter & Gamble, AI mapped data lineage across the organization.

Every update carried a timestamp, user ID, and reason. 

Audit cycles that once took three days now complete in four hours: a clean, traceable audit trail.

At Unilever, the same principle scaled across 140 markets.

Real-time data quality monitoring gave every regional team visibility into accuracy and consistency.

The result: a unified global system that improved compliance and decision-making speed.

According to Gartner, poor data quality costs organizations $12.9 million annually, proof that visibility isn’t optional. 

It’s operational strength.

Governance today works like version control for business logic.

Every model, metric, and dataset carries accountability and history.

When teams see data lineage clearly, they stop auditing for reassurance, because they already know what’s real.

The next generation of governance won’t be about checklists or controls.

It will be about systems that understand themselves, data that explains its own journey, and leaders who can trace a decision back to its source in seconds.

That’s how governance evolves from compliance overhead to strategic advantage.

Modern governance is not about control.

It’s about clarity: transforming inspection into insight, and compliance into confidence.

When organisations know the story behind their data, they move faster, decide better, and lead with assurance.

How much of your data can explain itself without an audit?

From Cloud Chaos to Controlled Intelligence. 

Why AI-ready architecture is the next C-suite priority.

Most enterprises still treat the cloud as storage.

But in the age of AI, it’s the backbone of intelligence.

The challenge isn’t adopting AI tools. It’s designing systems that can scale, stay secure, and remain compliant under constant change.

Without disciplined architecture: modular, observable, and governed- AI becomes expensive experimentation, not enterprise transformation.

In reality, many firms are investing heavily: global public cloud spending is forecast to hit $723 billion in 2025, up from $595.7 billion in 2024. 

Yet, 32 % of cloud budgets go to waste due to poor visibility, under-utilisation and lack of governance. 

That gap between rapid spend and mediocre ROI signals one thing: architecture discipline matters more than ever.

Most organisations are stuck between agility and governance.
Teams launch AI pilots faster than ever.

But their infrastructure still lacks lineage, versioning, and auditability. And when regulatory or cost pressure hits, they struggle.

In my latest article, I break down how global companies evolve from fast, lean cloud setups to Fortune-500-grade intelligence fabrics,  balancing agility, compliance, and cost control at every stage.

You’ll discover:

- The 4 architectural maturity stages of AI-driven enterprises.
- The DNA of trusted AI systems, from micro-modularity to continuous governance.
- A full checklist for CEOs, CFOs, and CAIOs to design scalable, secure, and auditable cloud systems.

If you’re leading technology, operations or finance, this is your roadmap to build AI on foundations you can trust.

🔗 Read the full piece: https://lnkd.in/dx3d9kZh

After reading, share your thoughts in the comments. 

How ready is your cloud for intelligence?

Before AI can transform business,

It has to pass a simpler test of credibility.

Every organisation is accelerating its AI agenda.

Yet progress depends on one invisible factor: trust.

Trust is the layer that converts automation into adoption.

It ensures every prediction, recommendation, and decision is understood, explainable, and reliable.

When teams understand how an AI system thinks, they move from using it occasionally to relying on it consistently.

That shift: from curiosity to confidence is what defines sustainable adoption.

The trust layer transforms AI from a technical tool into a decision partner that people can depend on.

The trust layer is built through:

1/. Transparent logic: Decisions that can be traced back to data and reasoning.
2/. Accountable data pipelines: Every transformation is documented and reviewable.
3/. Explainable outcomes: Users understand why an output was generated.
4/. overnance by design: Compliance, traceability, and oversight built into workflows.

Here’s how it plays out across industries:

Finance:

☞ Credit models that display input factors behind each approval.
☞ Dashboards that allow auditors to verify model behaviour.
☞ Risk teams using explainability as part of due diligence.

Healthcare:

☞ Diagnostic systems built on traceable clinical data.
☞ Validation logic visible to medical experts.
☞ Transparent models that enhance patient confidence.

HR:

☞ Algorithms evaluated for bias before deployment.
☞ Scoring frameworks that remain consistent across reviews.
☞ Continuous feedback loops that align fairness with performance.

Social proof reinforces credibility.

When teams see audited models, validated results, and trusted outcomes in practice, adoption accelerates naturally.

The more AI proves itself under real-world pressure, the stronger its cultural acceptance becomes.

The trust layer is not a feature, it is a governance mindset.

It combines clarity, accountability, and validation to make AI a dependable business partner.

Transformation scales when confidence scales.

How is your organisation strengthening the trust layer in its AI systems?

The Trust Layer Building Confidence

SaaS isn’t always the smartest cloud move, 

→ Especially for CFOs who value control over convenience.

For a decade, Software-as-a-Service has been sold as the default answer, fast to deploy, low cost, and maintenance-free.

But in the world of Order-to-Cash, compliance, and AI-driven operations, that convenience often hides a serious governance cost.

Cloud decisions now sit on a spectrum between control and convenience:

→ On-Premise gives full control but limits agility.
→ IaaS and PaaS balance ownership with flexibility.
→ SaaS hands everything, infrastructure, data, and risk, to the vendor.

And that’s where many CFOs lose visibility.

Key realities most leaders overlook:

👉 You don’t control where or how your data is stored.
👉 Customization stops at configuration, not at process redesign.
👉 Integration friction with ERP systems leads to fragmented reporting.
👉 Vendor lock-in and OPEX creep turn early savings into long-term costs.
👉 “Black-box” AI modules raise audit and explainability risks under SOX and the EU AI Act.
👉 Security failures on the vendor side can paralyse receivables and billing without internal failover options.

The numbers confirm it: Gartner estimates global SaaS spending will hit $300B by 2025, yet 53% of licenses in large enterprises remain unused, creating millions in wasted OPEX.

Smaller firms churn faster, up to 20% annually, as convenience gives way to cost, complexity, and compliance challenges.

The smarter CFO play:

1/. Use SaaS for tactical workflows like reminders or front-end automation.
2/. Retain control of core systems in PaaS, IaaS, or DBaaS environments.
3/. Prioritize open standards (REST, GraphQL, CSV) to preserve portability and governance.

Before your next subscription renewal, ask one question:

Do I want convenience, or do I want control?

Read the full article: SaaS Isn’t Always the Smartest Cloud Move

Read here: https://lnkd.in/dFY3u2vN

Because in finance transformation, control isn’t resistance, it’s ROI.

Every CFO is moving to the cloud 

Not everyone is in control of it.

Cloud adoption in finance has crossed the line from an IT decision to a strategic governance question.

CFOs today are not just funding infrastructure they’re designing the architecture that defines compliance, resilience, and accountability.

Every model: Public, Private, Hybrid, and Community, carries a unique trade-off between speed, scalability, and control.

Understanding that balance has become a core CFO competency.

1/. Public Cloud: Speed over control

Fast, flexible, and cost-efficient, perfect for analytics or AI pilots.

Yet shared infrastructure and external data residency can create compliance and governance challenges.

2/. Private Cloud: Control over convenience

Exclusive infrastructure with full visibility and auditability, ideal for ERP and financial systems.

The trade-off is higher cost and slower scalability, but it remains essential for regulated industries.

3/. Hybrid Cloud: Governance meets innovation

Critical workloads stay private, experimental or high-volume ones move public.

Integration becomes complex, but CFOs gain both agility and compliance.

4/. Community Cloud: Shared risk, shared compliance

Organisations with similar obligations, like banks or government networks, share infrastructure governed by common standards.

It moves more slowly but strengthens trust and consistency.

According to Gartner’s 2025 Finance Cloud Market Report:

→ 68% of financial institutions now operate in hybrid or multicloud setups.
→ 47% still rely on private clouds for sensitive workloads.
→ 53% of subscriptions remain underutilised, inflating the total cost of ownership.

These numbers reveal a key insight: speed without structure leads to inefficiency.

The right cloud model isn’t the one that scales fastest,
It’s the one that sustains compliance while enabling innovation.

CFOs must now act as Cloud Governors, asking:

- Do our cloud contracts guarantee portability and exit readiness?
- Are compliance and audit frameworks applied across all environments?
- Can our data and automation pipelines withstand regulatory review?

Because cloud decisions are governance decisions.

And in finance, control is not resistance, it is protection for growth.

Key takeaway:

Public Cloud = Speed
Private Cloud = Control
Hybrid Cloud = Balance
Community Cloud = Trust

For detailed frameworks, data, and real CFO case studies, read the full article: Cloud Models in Finance: Why Control Still Matters

Read here- https://lnkd.in/dgT4exMK

The right architecture is not just a technical foundation. 

It is the backbone of financial integrity.

AI systems scale faster than laws and oversight can adapt.

The rules meant to keep enterprise AI honest are falling behind – widening the friction between speed and accountability under new pressures such as the:

EU AI Act and rising demands for sustainability and radical transparency.
Governance isn’t just a compliance checklist.

It’s becoming the operating layer – the connective tissue linking innovation to integrity.

As automation and AI expand across every enterprise function, systems modernise while decision-making often lags.

Security and compliance frameworks exist, yet accountability and traceability still depend on manual oversight – leaving gaps where innovation and trust quietly erode.

The next stage is Governance as a Service (GaaS): not another tool, but an architectural rethink – a foundational layer that makes governance real-time, modular, and measurable.

Five Principles Defining GaaS

1️⃣ Modular Governance Frameworks 

Each domain finance, data, operations, HR – owns its own micro-layer, evolving autonomously while staying aligned with enterprise policy.

2️⃣ Role-Based Accountability Grids

Every decision maps to a clear owner and measurable outcome, shifting governance from retroactive control to continuous responsibility.

3️⃣ Dynamic Compliance Dashboards 

Governance becomes live and visual. Leaders track audit readiness, policy adherence, and risk anomalies in real time – not months later.

4️⃣ AI-Assisted Policy Enforcement

Machine learning surfaces bias patterns, anomalies, and breaches early, enabling preventive loops that reduce audit friction and strengthen controls.

5️⃣ Behavioural Enablement 

Governance endures only when culture does. 

Embedding intent documentation, context sharing, and bias reviews into daily routines turns governance from rule to reflex.

The Payoff:

Organizations that treat governance as an operating layer report faster decisions, higher audit readiness, and a culture of ownership that accelerates innovation.

1/. Estonia delivers transparency through AI-integrated governance, reducing audit closure time by 35%.

2/. Telstra operationalized AI governance, lowering policy exceptions by 20%.

3/. Mastercard aligned innovation with ethical responsibility and compliance, improving policy coverage metrics by 30%.

The real evolution isn’t from non-compliance to compliance – it’s from control to confidence.

Governance as a Service is moving from concept to execution: a structural imperative and the bridge between trust and transformation as enterprises scale AI at speed.

Is your governance keeping pace or slowing down your innovation?

Your forecast doesn’t fail because of data. 

It fails because of behaviour.

Forecasts are like weather reports.

Everyone reads them. Everyone depends on them.

But their accuracy fades when the right signals are missing.

Artificial Intelligence doesn’t make forecasting smarter by default.

It does when it’s trained on clean, connected, and behavioural data, the kind that captures how people and processes truly operate.

AI learns who pays late, under what conditions, and why those patterns repeat. That understanding turns projections into precision.

At BNY and Falconi Consulting, data from CRM, contracts, and payment history was unified into a single system.

When AI analysed those records, it uncovered a consistent pattern, 5 sales representatives were over-promising payment terms to close deals faster.

Once those commitments were aligned with real payment behaviour, forecast accuracy improved by 20%.

The breakthrough didn’t come from retraining the model.
It came from retraining behaviour.

Reliable forecasting begins with ownership.

When teams take responsibility for the data patterns they create, models become smarter and decisions become sharper.

AI reveals where attention is needed. 

Leadership decides what happens next.

When both align, forecasts stop being assumptions and start becoming advantages.

Today’s CFOs and finance leaders don’t just need predictive power.

They need behavioural visibility, knowing not just what will happen, but why it keeps happening.

That’s the new edge in financial transformation.

If your forecasts still depend more on confidence than evidence,
It’s time to rebuild them around truth, not tradition.

Are your forecasts driven by patterns you understand or behaviours you haven’t yet seen?

Let’s discuss how AI-led visibility can make your next forecast your most reliable one yet.

Customer experience weakens long before a complaint appears.

It usually starts with operational friction.

A wrong invoice.
A missed shipment.
A delayed credit note.

Each small delay creates confusion at the front end and frustration for the customer.

AI brings value when it links those front-line signals to the root causes behind them,, where real problems begin.

1/. At DHL Supply Chain, a rise in the phrase “Where is my invoice?” inside customer emails caught attention. 

- AI helped identify a flaw in the batch billing logic.

The issue was corrected once, and ticket volumes dropped by 40%.

No extra tools.
No workflow redesign.
Just clear visibility across systems.

2/. At Amazon and Telefónica, real-time sentiment models now monitor live calls. They detect tone shifts and hesitation patterns that indicate frustration.

Teams act before the emotion turns into escalation.
Customer trust stays intact.

The principle is simple: Strong customer experience depends on operational awareness. 

You can’t fix what you can’t see.
And when you see early, you prevent, not repair.

AI enables that awareness. It connects timing, data, and decisions across departments so that every team acts on context, not noise.

When systems talk to each other, customers experience consistency. 

When operations stay aligned, service feels reliable.

That is how intelligent operations create confidence, not through apology scripts or dashboards, but through timing that never misses.

How operational visibility can make customer experience proactive, not reactive.

Control + Alt + Disrupt: We’re asking one bold question:  

What if progress did not have to hurt?

For too long, modernization has been treated like a demolition project.

Full ERP migrations. Global rollouts. Endless reboots and millions lost to “transformation fatigue.”

But what if real advantage came not from tearing systems down, but from building intelligence around them?

In this episode, Mark Harrison and I unpack how finance and shared-services teams can modernize without drama and without waiting for a 2028 S/4HANA deadline.

Key ideas:

 👉 Using modular cloud layers (AWS Lambda, Azure NLP, Snowflake) to automate what matters now.
👉 Why “wait until migration” is the costliest phrase in operations.
👉 Why optimization is not revolution, it’s friction control.

Because modernization is no longer about massive overhauls — it is about precision.
 
Small, data-driven steps that create measurable momentum.

The future will belong to organizations that learn to layer intelligence, not rebuild everything.

Transformation fatigue is real, but so is transformation agility.

This is not another “AI will change everything” talk. 

It is where execution meets realism, for leaders with deadlines, not dreamboards.

🎧 Spicy AI: Modernization Without Migration
 
Listen now → https://lnkd.in/dN4w6b4D

What do you think: can modernization happen without migration?

Drop your thoughts below I woud love to hear real-world examples and opinions.

taplio

The Battle

Steve Litzow

Joanna Miler

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreSteve Litzow's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJoanna Miler's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Steve Litzow

Joanna Miler

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Steve Litzow's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJoanna Miler's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreSteve Litzow's LinkedIn Performance