How a Strategic CFO can Help to Double your Business in 2016

Despite some analysts’ grim financial forecasts, 2016 can be a year of exponential growth for your business. The key is to think big and to think outside the box.

Instead of making a list of all the ways you can cut back, make a list of all the ways you can increase your revenue tenfold. Once you have done this, narrow it down to the best three.

Now, you will need a plan of action. You will need to identify all of the risk that your plan entails and then find ways of eliminating or mitigating it.

This is where a good, strategic CFO is indispensable. A strategic CFO analyses not only where the money is coming from and where it is going but also where it should be coming from, where it should be going, and how to achieve this.

So how, exactly, will a strategic CFO help double your business in 2016? At the very least, he or she will do the following.

– Identify growth vectors open to your company and ensure that the necessary capital and resources are available to pursue them.

– Ascertain what constraints – financial or otherwise – are holding back your company’s growth and suggest ways of overcoming them.

– Gather information useful for resolving risk and liability uncertainties which are paralysing decision-making.

– Point out areas where your return on spending is not being adequately quantified and recommend more concrete methods for assessing it.

– Highlight potentially disruptive external changes (in competition, technology, industry) and describe what financial measures your business can take to respond and adapt.

– Bring attention to those underperforming areas which are needlessly tying up capital and management resources and should be disposed of.

Most of all, a strategic CFO will not be satisfied with insufficiently ambitious business goals. He or she will be pragmatic but also proactive, viewing finance as more than just a ledger to be balanced but as a tool to be leveraged. A strategic CFO will push you to think bigger, and then bigger still, and then show you how finance can help you get there.

At the CFO Centre, strategically minded CFOs are the only kind we work with. Before you tighten your belt and batten down the hatches for 2016, contact us to find out how investing in a part-time CFO can make this a year of exponential growth for your business.