What can a CFO ever do for you?

In the classic Monty Python sketch from Life of Brian, John Cleese, confidently asked the question “What have the Romans ever done for us”, I am sure you all know what happens next, if not I suggest it’s a movie you should watch to lighten your day.

Large organisations can generally afford and benefit from having a CFO on their Leadership Teams. My premise is that if you were to ask most large businesses CEO’s the similar question - What has your CFO ever done for you? they will give you a significant list, all of which will have added significant value to their owners and other stakeholder.

James Savage, Partner at YFM Equity Partners in the UK makes the following comment on the YFM website: “We’ve found that one of the common themes among our successes has been the breadth and depth a good CFO brings to the table.” As and investor it is clear that they see strong value in the CFO role as it ensure a greater return on their investment.

One of the CFO’s role is to provide insight, providing clarity to the future financial implications of current performance and strategic decisions that are being made today. By providing this clarity the CFO can guide your business to a secure, faster growing, more profitable and cash generative place. They can engage all stakeholders in the business including your employees in the role that they can play in helping deliver this secure future, and then ensure you have the correct scorecards and monitoring in place to give visibility of progress and allow course correction if required.

In her article, in the Strategic CFO in 2014 Lisatest Knight detailed the 5 ways that a CFO Adds Value.

1.      “The CFO enables the Company to grow faster
2.      The CFO can improve Company profitability
3.      The CFO can improve Cash Flow
4.      The CFO has the ability to obtain increased leverage from banks
5.      The CFO provides leadership and directions throughout the Company”

Although there may have been changes since this was written, due to technology advances and automation, the outcomes have not changed and the value still remains.

When you look at the list of advantages that a CFO can bring it would seem sensible for all businesses to have one in their team. The biggest challenge can be one of affordability. Despite the fact that the CFO will almost certainly pay back their salary several times over, for many SME’s the cost is prohibitive.

At The CFO Limited we believe that this creates an unfair advantage to larger businesses. We have set out to remove this unfair advantage and level the playing field. We are giving access to years of CFO experience to SME’s in New Zealand by providing an affordable, part time CFO service, often known as a Virtual CFO service. We can sit alongside your leadership team to provide the Financial Clarity for the future of your business.

So give us a call on 021 684159 or email us at paul@thecfo.co.nz for a no obligatin conversation about what we could do for you. Change the answer to the question, What has your CFO ever done for you? FROM:  We don’t have one. TO: they have delivered 5 great things.