CFO STRATEGY MEETING

August 24, 2023

Discussion Topics Include:

The Evolving Role of the CFO
  • More strategically-focused, more value-focused, more future-focused
  • Shift from historical capabilities reporting, performance management and investor relationships to turning data into insight and turning insight into foresight
  • Key role for business transformation – has to be both fiduciary and visionary
  • Collaboration across all areas of the business
ESG: Environmental, Social and Governance
  • How will CFOs calculate an organization’s footprint?
  • How to align sustainability efforts with financial priorities and tell a cohesive story to stakeholders
  • Determine the timing of implementation
  • Compliance with emerging reporting requirements
Getting and Retaining Talent in Our New World
  • What kind of talent is now required – different skills, more business acumen, more insight, more forward-looking capabilities
  • Most people are not looking for transaction type of work – has to be interesting/challenging/rewarding; knowledge workers – move from doers to thinkers
  • People want to move quickly in their careers – need to set out plans, milestones
  • Competitive salary, along with competitive benefits are not enough – people want to work for a business that has purpose and is socially responsible
Getting Corporate Cost Growth Under Control
  • Improving visibility into the breakdown of corporate costs
  • Need to set benchmarks and extend accountability to departmental and divisional levels
  • Understanding how to position the organization vis-à-vis issue such as ESG (e.g., how will wthat affect the T&E Policy)?
  • Budgets and forecasts as a key control for spending
Data-Driven Decisions
  • The importance of business intelligence
  • Who needs information and when
  • How does data become information and information become knowledge for decision-making
  • Tools, processes, skills required
Lease Negotiations: 2022 and Beyond
  • How much space does the company need now that we have a work/home hybrid model?
  • Expectations for the next 5 to 10 years?
  • Depending on your location(s), positioning the company considering the state of the commercial real estate market
  • Lease Accounting – ASC 842
  • Default Positions
Supplier and Vendor Innovation Can Fuel Growth
  • Are your procurement teams on the leading edge?
  • Aligning goals with your suppliers and ensuring you understand where you rank in your supplier’s customer base
  • Increased focus on ESG – know who you are doing business with – due diligence on suppliers
  • Supply chain management and the role of Finance
Shared Services
  • Centralized vs. decentralized – Which is more efficient and effective?
  • Outsourcing considerations
  • Digital Impact and support of shared services
  • Cost allocations to business units for shared services to assess profitability of business units
Accelerate Your Company's Digital Transformation
  • It’s table stakes and it’s everyone’s role – not just IT and Finance
  • How to engage the whole organization and make it exciting…can be scary for employees who will need to upgrade their skills
  • What investments are required
Business Growth – Surviving is Not Good Enough
  • Prerequisites for growth – need a solid base and well defined strategy
  • Know your business and strengths – what will deliver the best ROI
  • Know when to let go initiatives that are not delivering results
Cash Management: Do I Have Enough in the Current Environment?
  • What is the right level of cash to maintain given current market dynamics and interest rate volalitilty?
  • Balancing day-to-day working capital needs with longer-term capital investment to fund business growth
  • Forecasting inflows and outflows in an uncertain and volatile environment – continuing impact of Covid, inflation
  • Debt vs. Equity Financing
Finance and the Future of IT
  • How the Relationship between Finance and IT has evolved
  • Outsource vs Build your own
  • How Transformational Technology can help drive your business
  • Cybersecurity Considerations
Planning and Analysis
  • Shift focus to forward-looking information instead of historical – so much change in recent years that historical trends may no longer be relevant for decision-making
  • Give transparent, clear and consise messaging and hold business unit leaders accountable for their forecasts
  • Difference between budgets and forecasts; forecasts are constantly evolving based on updated information
  • Who is responsible for preparing budgets and forecasts; need link to strategic objectives and buy-in from business leaders
Managing with Metrics
  • What are the key drivers of your business
  • What metrics do you need to measure performance of the key drivers (consider fewer metrics, with more impact, that everyone understands)
  • What are the targets for the key metrics – what impact will reaching or missing targets have, what else needs to happen as a result of these outcomes
Internal Controls in the Arena of Digital Finance
  • Avoiding financial reporting risk without overly reducing the speed of implementation and processing
  • Ensuring your organization has the right controls around robotic automation (RPA)
  • Increased reliance on systems for controls – set up proper authorizations, create alerts, exception reports, diagnostics to prevent and detect fraud
  • Training of all employees to prevent/detect fraud
Building and Driving an effective Enterprise Risk Management Strategy
  • Establishing an ERM Governance Framework
  • Creating applicable risk assessment and mitigation categroies based on industry, size and culture
  • Implementing functional ERM visualization and reporting systems
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems
  • When is it time to upgrade? Downstream impact on financial applications (general ledger).
  • Is it best to go with an ERP or a patchwork of supporting systems?
  • Integrated ERP as a key tool for digital transformation in an organization
Customer Intelligence
  • What information has the most value to the organization; why; how is it used to make decisions
  • Need to align Business Intelligence and Finance to ensure consistency in data gathering
  • Need to package data meaningful reports to Executive Management to facilitate decision-making
Improving Day-to-Day Finance Operations
  • It’s everyone’s job to find efficiencies
  • Time efficiencies, cost efficiencies – balanced with proper controls
  • Placing greater reliance on systems to do the work; need controls to ensure reliability of information
  • Accelerate timeliness of delivering financial information – what needs to be delivered hourly, daily, weekly, monthly

NCS Madison Corp.

101 W Grand Ave, Suite 200
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 239-8584
marketing@ncsmadison.com