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Hire a CFO Call us 1300 447 740

Tag: strategy

Why SME’s shouldn’t ignore Risk Management

by lauramills
Why SME’s shouldn’t ignore Risk Management

Many people think that risk management is only for large corporations. This is not the case! Risk management is a NECESSITY FOR EVERY BUSINESS. The hard part is to properly align risk management processes to each unique organisation.

The world is undeniably riskier. Change is ever more rapid, and this has been accelerated by COVID. Increasing digitisation of business processes will inevitably increase cyber-security risk. The world is still highly connected, and McKinsey estimate that supply chain shocks will reduce profits by 42% of annual EBITDA profits every 10 years. Geopolitical risk, climate change, border closures and business disruptors (new business models, social media etc) will all play a part.

• RISK MONITORING

It’s important not to let risk slip off the radar, and for to you be aware of possible issues. Talking to people in your industry can give you insights from other perspectives. Being sucked into day to day operations can leave no time to think about strategy and risks. Moreover, when implementing these strategies, try to consider the related risks by staying close to your business analysis and industry trends.  Talking to a CFO, who with a wealth of experience and a fresh pair of eyes may give you new perspectives and insight!

• RISK APPETITE

Decide how much risk you are willing to accept. This depends on the operational and financial strength of the organisation, as well as the business strategy and your risk versus return profile. What’s the takeway? Risk is part of doing business, but make sure it is within your limits, and you are in control.

• RISK MANAGEMENT

  • Understand how to mitigate risk, e.g. insurance, experts, financial tools or internal controls.
  • Work on simple scenario modelling to understand implications and solutions. Simple cyber security audits can also be useful.
  • Curtail activities that exceed your risk limits.
  • Restructure staffing so that owners/managers have some time to think about risks and strategy.
  • Ensure risk management is embedded in the organisation.
  • Ensure internal controls are in place so you have confidence that risks are controlled and reported.

Risk management is a must do. To be successful it needs to be correctly sized, using appropriate techniques. If this is not done, risks can damage or destroy the business. Too complex and it will detract from the real world task of running the business (and probably wont get done anyway!).

Gary Campbell is a CFO Centre Principal based in Melbourne, Australia, advising SMEs on finance, strategy and governance. He is a qualified accountant, MBA, and graduate of Australian Institute of Company Directors. He can be contacted on [email protected]

3 Steps to Scaling Your Business Through Reporting

by lauramills
3 Steps to Scaling Your Business Through Reporting

A client recently said to me: “I want to grow our business and stop the cash burn – how do we do this? When is it the right time to invest and grow?”

What a tough question to answer. Each business is at a different stage.

We spent a day examining his business and determining what the growing pains were. He had started the business a few years ago and it grew from scratch.

It was generating a great turnover and growing but they never had any cash.

“Why?” he asked.

After reviewing the business financials it was quite clear that the internal systems were not in place. He could not possibly understand the profitability of the products they were selling due to these inadequate systems.

Therefore they could not take the next step.

The first question I asked was: “Where do you want to take this business – what’s your goal? To build up the business and exit down the line, or are you looking to exit now? Or is this business a keeper if we can generate a great RoI?”

The response was: “We don’t know the numbers or where this business could get too as we have no clarity on the numbers”.

Something I see very commonly here in the SME businesses I work with – no clarity around the financials.

Next Steps

Step one for this particular client was to build a reporting framework around their products to determine what was profitable and what as not. If there were non profitable products (or those that deliver little profitability), should we dump them or only include them bundles in the online offering?

Step two: Build a fully flexible 3-way financial model (P&L, Cash Flow and Balance Sheet) for the next 3 years. Play around with the assumptions, i.e what other products can we put into the offering to customers?

Step three: Monthly reviews against the plan – what worked, what didn’t work and the whys around both.

The right time for a business to grow is when they can balance new customer demand with their internal systems and processes. Moreover, in the instance of this client, increasing recurring revenue streams. Growing faster generally costs more per customer as they need to engage more expensive channels within the business model.

Scalability is about continuing to engage customers with new offerings, and to engage new customers with your offering to the market.

To scale a business one must consider how the business model will affect the bottom line when you expand operations. If you have low capital expenditure and can grow your business with the same revenue / expense % it is much easier to deliver greater numbers in the long term and provide greater options to your customers.

It is early days working with this client but the potential is endless.

Under the Spotlight – The CFO as a Strategist

by lauramills
Under the Spotlight – The CFO as a Strategist

The Roles of a CFO

Our CFOs have all walked the walk, playing leadership roles in fast growth businesses in every sector. The Strategist role of your CFO is to help you define what you really want from your business and work with you to devise the strategy to make it happen. This includes attention, in the current climate, on future-proofing your business to adjust to market conditions. There has never been a greater opportunity to grow through acquisitions and purchase competitive businesses at below market value. Financing terms are also incredibly competitive. A CFO can help you navigate the options and set yourself up for recovery and success.

What is The Strategist?

So, what does ‘strategy’ or ‘being strategic’ mean for Business Owners, Directors of Boards and Management? Often this concept is confusing as the roles relating to strategy are not clearly defined. In in the case of SMEs, the owner is often the Director and Manager of all things. This can be stressful for the owner as there are many elements to juggle. So, how does the owner cope with these increasing demands made upon them?

In general, Directors ‘set’ the strategy and ‘monitor’ its implementation whilst Management execute or implement the strategic plan usually with the development of a tactical or business plan within the strategic intent of the organisation. The CFO traditionally is responsible for the overall high level financial resourcing of the plan. This may include (and not be limited to) modelling high level scenarios, ensuring adequate cash flow for the life of the plan, developing appropriate financial risk management controls, investigation of strategic funding options and developing three way financial forecasting models for at least five years. This not a function that can be effectively carried out by a financial controller or bookkeeper. They will be managing the day to day resources and accounting for these resources via many reporting methods.

Align with your purpose

Strategy is an essential growth mechanism for an organisation to create value for its shareholders (FP) or service to communities (NFP). The perception of what ‘value’ is needs to be efficiently communicated to all stakeholders as this may vary or be interpreted differently by the varying sectors within the organisation’s business community. The development and execution of strategy is not without risk. A proper (fit for purpose) and robust risk management process must be in place for the plan to yield successful outcomes.
The part-time CFO in conjunction with the CEO and Board (or owner/s in SMEs) can assist in the above imperative process to create value and must be aligned with the purpose (why the organisation exists) statement. Often a review of the previous strategic plan needs to be undertaken to assess its success and limitations. This informs the future planning element, and to ensure that the valuable aspects are retained. Moreover, other less successful outcomes are redesigned or eliminated.

The following diagram illustrates the strategic process with which CFOs as ‘Strategists’ are engaged:

Directors of large entities and owners of SMEs must be ‘strategically intentional’. In addition, senior management must be ‘strategically managed’ by the CEO or equivalent. The Board or Owner ultimately holds all responsibility for the strategic success of the organisation. They employ the CEO to execute the set strategy. If the owner is the CEO and wears all the hats, then there is considerable demand placed on the owner to execute the strategy. The first item on any Board agenda should be the reporting of strategic progress against the set objectives by the CEO. It is not uncommon for the CFO to present the Finance report at Risk and Audit (or Finance) Sub-committees of the Board. The CFO would work closely with the Chair of the Risk & Audit Committee and CEO and ‘own the magic numbers’ of the organisation. In an SME, the Financial Controller (or external accountant/similar) would carry out this function and liaise closely with the Owner on a more regular basis.

Get your numbers in order
Informed and insightful decision making can only be made if the magic finance numbers are accurate and informative. Reporting should thus be tailored and customised for the type of organisation (large, medium, and small enterprises). This is where the CFO can truly add immense value. A ‘one size fits all’ approach just does not work in today’s challenging, diverse and financially demanding business environment.

Written by Dr. Andre Van Zyl, Regional Director (QLD) – The CFO Centre

The Top 4 Mistakes People Make When Planning

by lauramills
The Top 4 Mistakes People Make When Planning

A strategic plan is fundamental, it sets out the company’s strategic direction. It defines its main operating and financial targets, the actions it will take to achieve those objectives, the new initiatives and investments planned, and their impact on the company’s performance.

The top mistakes business owners can make when it comes to planning are:

  1. They don’t have a plan at all
  2. They don’t have a formal plan, it’s in their head which is difficult to share with others
  3. They don’t have an implementation timetable attached to their plan
  4. They don’t have a mechanism in place to conduct regular reviews

Without a comprehensive, up-to-date strategic plan and an implementation timetable, companies may be missing out on opportunities for growth and not realising their full potential. A formal plan can be an extremely valuable tool for managing and growing a business, as it allows a company to recognise its strengths and weaknesses.

Chaos Reins

Not spending quality time on strategic planning usually leads to a chaotic working environment. Our clients often talk about ‘not feeling in control’ and ‘not really knowing what is coming around the next corner’. When the plan is weak, business owners tend to operate without the same sense of conviction as those who allocate time and expertise to the planning process. Our CFOs often find that their clients have done some good planning and strategic thinking but need a devil’s advocate to ask the right questions and help to steer the ship in the right direction.

Helping Hand

Being a CEO without a high-level finance person to bounce ideas off can be tough. CFOs often possess a different albeit complementary set of skills to CEOs/MDs. It is natural for business owners to bring people into the company who see the world in the same way they do. However, it is often more valuable to have key members of your team who possess very different skills to your own.

Constantly doing the same things in the same way with the same people will usually lead to achieving the same results. If you are worried about whether you have the right team in place to fulfil the vision you have for your business, or whether you have the funds you require, or whether your business plan is sufficient to reach your objectives, then we would recommend you take the time out to work through the detail. It is rare to see a company succeed if it doesn’t have a robust plan.

Our part-time CFOs often work with clients who started off with intentions to run a business and have ended up working in a job. However, with the right business plan in place and a robust implementation approach, the business owner is able to run the business without getting drawn too far into the day-to-day details. Contact Us if you would like to discuss your options.

How A Strategic Plan Will Change Your Business

by lauramills
How A Strategic Plan Will Change Your Business

Strategic Planning is the key to the success of any business, no matter its size or age but it’s said that many small to medium-sized businesses don’t have a plan of any kind.

What is a Strategic Plan?

The strategic plan sets out:

  • the company’s direction and priorities;
  • its main operating and financial targets,
  • the actions it will take to achieve those objectives,
  • the new initiatives and investments planned, and
  • their impact on the company’s performance.

Nearly a fifth of SMEs say they prefer to keep plans in their head, according to research by Close Brothers Asset Finance. Mike Randall, CEO of Close Brothers Asset Finance, says, “It’s concerning that so many small and medium sized firms do not have a strategic business plan.  Without clear direction, they may be missing out on opportunities for growth and not realising their full potential.”

A formal plan is an extremely valuable tool for managing and growing a business as it:

  • clearly communicates the company’s priorities
  • ensures all key staff are working towards common goals
  • sets the focus on key objectives
  • delegates actions and accountabilities amongst employees
  • ensures that decisions made will benefit the long-term company goals
  • allows a company to recognise its strengths and weaknesses.

Failing to plan is like planning to fail

Strategic Planning is an area SMEs should be focusing on.   Furthermore, a plan is only useful if it is reviewed regularly to ensure it meets the current and future needs of the business.  It’s vital business owners regularly review their financial strategy to ensure they have the right funding in place to meet the needs of their business, at its current stage of the business lifecycle.

Most CEOs and MDs simply don’t have the time to spend on quality strategic thinking and to document and communicate that thinking in a way which allows the whole business to buy into the vision. Harder still is managing and implementing the business plan. Significant strategic course corrections are commonplace in fast-growing companies. These should be embraced. The tricky part though is in managing regular change. That requires a combination of time and specialist knowledge.

There is an art and science to effective business planning. Getting it right brings a real sense of clarity and direction to a business. This is where an experienced part-time CFO can make a significant contribution.

There is an art and science to effective strategic planning. Getting it right brings a real sense of clarity and direction to a business.

Business Plan for Funding

It’s likely at some point in your business journey, that you need access to funding. Whether that be to scale faster, expand into other territories or buy other businesses.

External funding could be via banks, non-bank lenders, venture capitalists, and angel investors.  None of these are unlikely to look at any funding request that isn’t accompanied by a very solid business plan.  It defines exactly what you want to achieve, and how you plan to achieve it across a set time period. It’s a sure-fire way to ensure that growth targets and plans are being met.

However, business owners will struggle to formulate a concrete business plan without firstly ensuring that their strategic plan is solid and robust.

Our team can assist in creating and implementing a solid strategic plan and/or business plan that paves the journey for your business. Click here to find out more, or contact us on 1300 447 740.

What Is a CFO…And Why Do You Need One?

by lauramills
What Is a CFO…And Why Do You Need One?

Many of my SME and NFP clients ask me “What is a CFO? …. And why do I need one?”

What they are really asking is, “what value can a CFO bring, and what can a CFO do that my finance/accounting/book-keeping team cannot do?”.

BREADTH & COMMERCIALITY

A CFO (Chief Financial Officer) has responsibility for ALL the financial affairs of an organisation. It normally takes around 10+ years of diverse finance experience before they get their FIRST CFO role. Being the top finance person in these sizeable organisations means that they normally acquire commercial, operational and strategic experience.

The finance/accounting team or accountant/book-keeper has responsibility for the accounting system. In this context this typically involves processing invoices and transactions, making payments to suppliers and staff, compiling budgets, facilitating any audits, preparing P&Ls and balance sheets, and compliance work such as filing tax returns. It is an important and critical part of the overall financial system. It is the engine room, or the lifeblood of the financial ship, giving the ship energy, information and the ability to move. But it is not the entire financial operation. There are other parts of the metaphorical ship,e.g. navigation, steering and radar rooms.

CFO’s financial role. In addition to the accounting system, CFO may focus on:

  • Need forward looking reporting. Accounting system is generally historic (past transactions). We don’t drive our cars with eyes fixed on rear view mirror!
  • Tax planning (not filing)
  • Increased focus on cashflows rather than P&Ls (profitable businesses can go bankrupt)
  • Reporting that gives information on how different parts of the business are performing (rather than the information that ATO or auditors require)
  • Medium term business plans with milestones and KPIs (not annual budgets)

CFO’s commercially and strategic role:

  • Partnering with, and advising, the CEO/owner to drive business performance
  • Manage and mitigate risks
  • Linking financial and operational strategies
  • Evaluating and advising on projects, products, customers, pricing strategies

In a nutshell, a good CFO will have breadth at all areas of finance and accounting, but in addition have commercial and strategic acumen.

DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOUR BUSINESS IS DOING?

As businesses grow and become more complex it is more difficult for owner/managers to have comfort that everything is under control. No longer can they do it all, and see it all, but they don’t know how to setup systems and structures to delegate.

This is currently made more difficult by pandemics, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruption etc.

Many good businesses fail at this early growth stage. We often call it “the first brick wall”!

It’s a vicious downward spiral. The business suffers, or worse case, runs out of cash.

SO, DO YOU NEED A CFO?

An experienced CFO knows how to setup these systems, to better enable profitable, crisis free growth. They can act as advisors, partners and mentors.

So YES, you may very well need a CFO.

Your finance team can also benefit. By working with the CFO they can up-skill and broaden their experience.

Win, win!!

“But I don’t need and can’t afford a full-time CFO”.

ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, but you do need help, just not full-time help.

SOLUTION….a Part Time CFO model. You pay for the CFO only when you need them!! On demand CFOs.

Written by Gary Campbell. Gary is an experienced CFO, based in Victoria,  working for the CFO Centre Australia. He is particularly successful at profit improvement, financial turnarounds, risk management and corporate governance for SMEs and NFP. He can be contacted here

17 Reasons Why You Need a CFO To Help You Exit

by lauramills
17 Reasons Why You Need a CFO To Help You Exit

The CFO Centre will provide you with a highly experienced senior CFO (Chief Financial Officer) with ‘big business experience’ for a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO.

This means you will have:

  • One of Australia’s leading CFOs, working with you on a part-time basis
  • A local support team of CFOs, plus
  • A national and international collaborative team of over 750 CFOs sharing best practice (the power of hundreds)
  • Access to our national and international network of clients and partners

With all that support and expertise at your fingertips, you will achieve better results, faster. It means you’ll have more confidence and clarity when it comes to decision-making. After all, you’ll have access to expert help and advice whenever you need it.

In particular, your part-time CFO will help you to ensure that your business has planned and prepared for an exit. The sale process would be managed efficiently to minimise challenges on price, and prevent advisors’ fees from absorbing too much of the sale price.

For example, your CFO will:

  1. Help you to implement your strategy for growth and exit
  2. Identify where value can be maximised and eliminate unprofitable or low profit activities
  3. Ensure that shareholders’ interests are protected through a shareholders’ agreement
  4. Explain what incentive arrangements are available for key management and introduce them. These could include bonus plans aligned to the business objectives or option plans
  5. Ensure that property is held in the most appropriate manner for the business and any potential acquirer, freehold or leasehold, length of tenancy
  6. Review pension arrangements to identify any funding or future liability issues
  7. Review contracts and trading terms to ensure they are in place, up to date and enforced
  8. Identify risks to the business from suppliers and customers on whom the business may have become reliant and plan to spread the risk
  9. Improve the accuracy and timeliness of management information
  10. Introduce systems and controls to increase confidence in the integrity of the accounting information
  11. Improve and/or introduce forecasting processes and procedures so that budgets and forecasts can be used as dynamic planning tools
  12. Identify means of improving margins and reducing overheads to improve profitability
  13. Ensure compliance with PAYG, Superannuation, GST, Income Tax and Company Tax legislation while seeking ways to reduce the overall tax burden to you and your business
  14. Introduce you to corporate finance, legal and other advisers to help with all aspects of the exit preparation and process
  15. Project manage the exit process internally so that it minimises the disruption to other staff and their continuing responsibilities
  16. Create confidence in the acquirer and their advisers so that they have limited opportunity to attempt to negotiate the price down or increase warranties from you
  17. Help you achieve the freedom you want after the efforts that you have invested in growing business

How much better would you feel when you engage a top calibre CFO to work with you on your exit/succession?  Get in touch with us today – 1300 447 740

 

Photo by fauxels

4 Signs That My Business Might Need CFO Services

by lauramills
4 Signs That My Business Might Need CFO Services

I have recently been talking to business owners and executives who want to build more resilience into their business. They are considering adding a part-time Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to their team.  During these discussions, two questions usually come up.  “How do I know if my business needs a CFO?” and “what does a CFO do that my Accountant can’t?”.  I would like to share some thoughts on these questions.

The primary responsibility of a CFO is to optimize the financial performance of a company. This includes its reporting and accountability, liquidity, return on investment and long-term value creation.

A CFO has a forward-looking perspective. They look at interactions of the business with outsiders, acting as a diplomat and negotiator with third parties.  Often the strategies put in place by a CFO are not short-term fixes. Some may take months or years to be fully realised.

How do I know when my business needs a CFO?

As to the question of when a business needs a CFO, the following indicators may be helpful.

  1. Internal – When information that helps in making important decisions is not timely or reliable.
  2. External – When improved respect must be gained outside the business. eg from investors, customers, suppliers, labour markets, regulators etc.
  3. Rapid Growth – Growth requires an expansion of systems, and usually additional capital to finance the growth.
  4. Exit – When a business is preparing for a merger, acquisition, or business sale.

So, when the business is at the stage of increased external engagement and growth, a CFO can add significant value.

What does a CFO do that my Accountant can’t?

A CFO always works closely with the external Accountant. Having an accounting background, the CFO is well placed to understand the role of the external Accountant.  The external Accountant’s role is mostly concerned with compliance and transactional advice.  They work from their own offices and will normally attend the client’s business premises periodically.  External Accountants often have the skill sets to provide additional services. However, they are usually not involved closely enough in the running of the business to make this a sensible use of their time.

Functions such as the below will either fall to the CFO or some other suitably qualified resource will need to be allocated:

  • Budgeting and forecasting
  • Cash flow management
  • Financial reporting
  • Scenario planning
  • Internal controls
  • Insurance
  • Bench-marking and key performance indicators
  • Incentive schemes
  • Management of key suppliers
  • Accounting policies

If the business doesn’t have a CFO, the CEO or one of the Directors have to take ownership of these functions.  This means they are taken away from other important leadership and governance roles. They also may not have the depth of experience in the technicalities of financial transactions to handle these things well.

Some of the common misconceptions about a CFO

There are some common misconceptions about a CFO that are worth discussing.

The first misconception is that a CFO may have an excessive focus on short-term financial results ie this year’s profit.  Financial success of the business is undoubtedly the objective of any CFO. This, however, does not mean sacrificing long-term value creation for short-term results.  A CFO is interested in the success of all business stakeholders. This includes owners, employees, customers, suppliers, financiers etc. All stakeholders must be rewarded to ensure the long-term health of the business.

CFOs are therefore, likely to be just as interested in the business strategy as they are in the profit and loss statement. In addition, culture, reputation, governance, and risk management will be on their radar. A good CFO recognises that sustainable financial success is only achieved when all aspects of a business are working well.

Another commonly held misconception is that CFOs think in “black and white”. That therefore, they may not be comfortable with the various shades of grey that business and life deal up.  Whilst that may be true for some aspects of a CFO’s decision-making, good CFOs will look closely at the underlying issue.  For example, CFOs are often involved in analysing the performance of a business or even individuals.  In understanding performance, a CFO will often consider a range of underlying factors. This can include; roles and responsibilities, resources, delegated authorities, remuneration and incentive systems, behavioural assessments, management approach, and organisational structure and culture.  CFOs are first and foremost experienced corporate managers. They understand that people are usually the most critical resource in businesses. From experience, most CFOs are skilled at dealing with people issues sensitively.

If you’d like a confidential discussion about whether a part-time CFO could be right for your business, please contact us.

Allan Robb, CFO at the CFO Centre