5 Things Besides Accounts Payable Automation That Keep CFOs Up At Night

In today’s complex world, there’s certainly no shortage of concerns for businesses of all shapes and sizes.  While many may be kept up at night by food cravings or late night television, those two items don’t make our top five list for the things that concern the top Financial brass of most companies.  With that said, we wanted to take a look at the things which most concern CFO’s in the 2013 economy, and evaluate how they can be addressed. 

So what are the big 5?

1.  Global Instability – It’s kind of oxymoronic, but the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  With that said, there have been macro shifts in the global economy in the last twenty years, with massive markets gaining strength in countries like China, India, & Brazil.  Additionally, sustained geo-political crises, especially in crucial regions to the global energy supply (Middle East anyone…?), and competitive pressures from low cost service providers create many challenges that inevitably pressures CFOs to consider the potential business impacts if any of the aforementioned proverbial chess pieces gets moved.

2.  The US Recovery – Much has been written about the solidity of the current US recovery.  Many would argue that the recovery is much more benign than is being propagated across media channels and that there are inaccurate financial calculations and projections being shared regarding capitalization, actual labor participation, inflation, and the like.  When you boil it all down, many CFOs have an inherent distrust in the fortitude of the US recovery at present, which ultimately impacts consumer (and commercial) spending, which in turn are the growth engines of how our economy functions.  The other side of this coin is that CFOs have to be involved in setting their organizations on the right path (from a product/strategic investment perspective) to help raise top line revenues regardless of the adversarial, or at best lukewarm market conditions.

3.  Finding & Retaining Talent – With higher than average numbers of people who are available in the market for hire, many CFO’s have challenges in getting qualified protégés for succession management.  Additionally, many organizations would like to expand their talent pool, but ironically many companies are not quick to set about the hiring and expansion process precisely because of point #2.  With instability in the US recovery, not many C level executives are willing to bet the ranch and go long the market (so to speak) by bringing in additional resources.  To add complexity to this mix, many CFOs are looking for a melding of core capabilities that are difficult to come by…high analytical skills, political savvy (interoffice, not Donkeys and Elephants – though that can be valuable too), broad economic insights and understanding.  Beyond that a core focus is the grooming and mentoring process, which takes time, leading to our next point.

4.  Assaults on time – With the average CFO receiving between 200-500 emails a day, it’s safe to say that speed reading coursework might be in order.  Or, perhaps it’s a matter of prioritization.  The point is that there are many competing interests that will quickly drain a CFO of energy and time, and so CFO’s must be judicious in their use of time and adopt a mindset of delegation.  By having quality direct reports in place, CFO’s can prioritize what demands their attention and what can be handled by others who are empowered.  By not embracing prioritization and delegation, CFOs literally are kept up at night as the idyllic 9-5 work schedule becomes more of a 6-9 affair, all kidding aside.  The long term consequence of that is burn out, and certainly no organization wants to lose it’s top executive talent to fatigue, stress, or the like.

5.  Cash Management – The Gambler may be a trite Kenny Rogers song in which the gambler has an uncanny savvy about the appropriate times to hold, fold, walk away, and run.  Similarly, CFOs need to evidence a deft hand for managing the organizations finance.  Certainly some of this falls on the Treasurer of an organization, but managing cash is fundamental.  Using Cash to buy back outstanding shares of stock, pay dividends, reduce debt, make strategic investments all comes with pros and cons, and must be weighed qualitatively and quantitatively by CFOs in conjunction with their C level peers. 

So what are some of our thoughts on improving the life of a CFO…we never thought you’d ask.

For starters, most of our philosophy on improving the well being and performance of an organization deals with improving the bottomline through back office improvements.  By eliminating inefficiencies bound up in transactional paper based processes and leveraging a transactional costing model in addition to high technology in the cloud that requires nominal investment (as opposed to the big dollar investments archaic software providers have normally charged) augmented by human intelligence, which we call document process outsourcing…you can start to touch a couple of these key items.  You can impact the financial piece (Accounts Payable automation !!!), especially the liquidity management, and create more powerful outcomes than your current personnel constraints.  Certainly any kind of a project lift, requires focus and will consume time, but in our experience, the most meaningful and impactful projects begin with Departmental level desires to improve, get the blessing from the C-level suite, and are designed, championed, and executed by the department level folks, aka delegates.

To learn more about Document Process Outsourcing and how it’s making life easier for CFO’s all around the globe, check this out!