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Dec 5, 2019 • 20min
Ep. 32: Robert Leonard - Climbing the Ladder
Contact Robert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwleonard/The Investors Network Podcast: www.theinvestorspodcast.com IMA Life-Robert Leonard: https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/july-2019-ima-life-adding-impact/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Mitch: (00:00)This is Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I am Mitch Roshong and I'd like to welcome you back for episode 32 with corporate finance manager Robert Leonard. In this episode, Robert talks to us about climbing the ladder in today's industry and why accounting skills are so valuable. So now let's head over to his conversation with Adam Adam: (00:26)So Robert, what advice do you have for students or recent graduates hoping to break into accounting and finance fields? Robert: (00:40)I think one of the biggest things is don't be afraid to take a position that isn't perfect or doesn't pay the most. I think you need to think longterm and you know, ideally look for opportunities where you'll have a mentor. Adam: (00:58)So how do they find that mentor? Robert: (01:01)I think it's through the interview process. Usually when you go to interview, you'll have three or four different people that you'll be meeting with in general and see if any of those people seem like they might be be great mentors for you. And I recently made a job change actually, but within the last six months or so and I was in a position where I was very, very happy. I didn't want to leave the organization that I was at, but the new company, the the gentleman that was going to be hiring me had those characteristics that I was looking for in a mentor. Yeah, I thought he was going to be a great mentor and that was one of the big things that really swayed me there and, and I think you should interview even if you're not a hundred percent certain on the position, you can learn a lot in the interview and that can really help you determine if there's opportunities that might not be present in the job description. I've interviewed for positions before in the past that weren't necessarily right up my alley, but it ended up being a great opportunity for me that I really enjoyed. And I think other ways you can break into the accounting and finance field, they're learning outside the classroom. I think that's so big these days. Well, a lot of people are still going to college and there is great value in college. I think learning outside the classroom is critical and specifically skills outside of like a normal college. So Excel or just how to professionally write emails and professional communications that can be taught in school. When I, back when I was in college, probably the best course I took throughout my entire college career was my professional communications course and that's helped me in various ways that I never would've expected in my career. And I think it's those skills that are more tailored for outside the classroom that can really help [inaudible] break into an accounting and finance field. And just one more thing that I think you can do these days is published content on LinkedIn and it should be tailored to the type of job that you want to get. So if you want to get in accounting and finance, post content about accounting and finance on LinkedIn and that should be able to help you get in front of either recruiters or just prove your knowledge too, potential employers. So you've got a mentor, you've got those first few jobs, you've gone on interviews and then you know, you start your first job. You know, what does it take to kind of climb that corporate ladder in today's accounting industry? I think what's so interesting about climbing the corporate ladder today is that it doesn't just take time anymore. You know, decades ago you could just kind of do the same thing and day in and day out and eventually you would follow the path and you gradually climb the corporate ladder. And I don't really think that's the case anymore. I think what you need to do to climb the corporate ladder is you need to work really hard and do things above and beyond so that you're the first person that a company thinks of when they have an opening. I think there's a lot of turnover these days in companies and so it's almost eminent that there's going to be an opening and when that opening does happen, you want to be the first person that your boss or their boss thinks of when that opening come so that they choose you to go into that new position. And I think that just comes from going above and beyond taking on additional projects that maybe no fit your job description perfectly, but you know the company needs pure hard work. Just be the first one in the office and the last one to leave and if you don't know how to do something, find a way to do it. If you take on additional projects area, there's additional projects that you want to take on and you might not know how to do it. You can, there's so many free resources out there these days to learn what you may need to know to get that project completed. So I just say find a way to do it. And I think the other, I live my career, bye. Three things and it's really helped me advance my career. And that's humility, a dedication to lifelong learning and hard work. Humility allows you to realize that you don't know everything and that you still have a lot to learn. But by being dedicated to learning, you can learn the things that you don't know and then apply it through hard work. And I think, I honestly think what those three things, anything is possible. And I'm still relatively early on in my career myself, but I've scaled my career pretty quickly by those three things. And I think those are really the three critical things that you need to climb the corporate ladder in today's accounting industry. And another aspect of it that I think is relatively uncommon to be talked about, especially when we're talking about work, we're talking about climbing the corporate ladder, right? So what does, what does personal finance have to do climbing the corporate ladder in an accounting industry? Well, I think it has a big role and I think what we'll see play out over the next few years and I think it'll be an increasingly important role. And the reason I say that is because if you can get your personal finances in order, you're able to take risks with your career that will play out over the long term, better for you but might not be as helpful in the short term. Right? So if you are in a financial position with your personal finances where you're a little bit tight on money and okay, you might need to take a the next job that you want to take and you might have to go to the job that has the highest salary even though it might be short term, highest salary and not a lot of opportunities for growth. Sure you could switch companies and you know, kind of do the job hopping thing. But in general that's not a great strategy. Whereas if you have your personal finances in order and you're coming from a really strong background of, of your finances, you can take us a little bit of a short term hit maybe that that next job isn't as big of an increase in pay as you want, but you're getting a great mentor, you have huge opportunities for growth. And over the next three to five years you could double your salary or you know even more, you know, I think, but if you don't come from a position of financial strength where you have that abi...

Dec 2, 2019 • 16min
Ep. 31: Monisha de Quadros - Transforming the CFO Function
Contact Monisha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monishadequadros/Sparkbox Group: www.sparkboxgrp.com FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)Hey everyone. Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Adam Larson and this is episode 31 of count me in for today's episode. We're going to hear Mitchell's conversation with Monisha de Quadros, a former CFO in both the public and nonprofit sector and now founder of her own outsource CFO firm. Let's listen to Mona. Just take on the role of today's CFO. Mitch: (00:44)What are the main differences in the finance function between public organizations and the nonprofit sector? Monisha: (00:44)So yeah, that's a really good question. there are very few nonprofits today that have a proper finance function. Many times what happens in a nonprofit organization is that the accounting team subsidizes and doubles up as a finance team. And unfortunately the skills required for an optimal finance function is actually quite different than the skills needed for accounting. So nonprofits can certainly train their teams for financial modeling skills, critical thinking and analysis. But it's challenging because the two functions actually a wired differently. And then the hiring process is also a bit of a catch 22 because it's difficult to recruit finance talent in the nonprofit sector and yet it is critical to the success of these organizations. So having the right financial support and the nonprofits helps drive profitability, grow revenue, stretch and maximize each dollar expense, deliver valuable insights, and then also create long term sustainable strategies. Mitch: (01:40)Now with a perspective, from, you know, both sides of that conversation, what is the greatest challenge you faced as a CFO with today's changing finance function? Particularly with, technology and digital age? Monisha: (01:55)Yeah. You know I think it's two fold. Like one of the biggest challenges the CFO faces today is transforming the finance function from a cost center to a value creation center. The second challenge subsequently is the evolution of the CFO role itself. So both the finance team and the CFO are gatekeepers of critical data required to support decisions and strategic plans as they chart their journey through the digital age, the success of one becomes more intrinsic in the success of the other. So let's talk about the value creation center first. So it's safe to say our environment is changing at a rapid rate and this is probably the slowest pace we will see in our lifetime. So the speed at which change is happening, it's forcing businesses to evolve and transform at quicker intervals in order to stay relevant and competitive. So factors such as disruption, innovation, technology, consumer behavior, and globalization are all contributing to this space of change. Without the right data and financial insights, businesses will have a tough time making intelligent business decisions compete in this environment. and as a result it becomes increasingly critical for the finance function to step up and equip the business with the right financial insights for better decisions. So we need to evolve into value centers. And what I mean by value centers as I'm preparing to choose thoughtful analysis, predictive analytics strategies, and most importantly actionable insights with respect to the CFO. What's really interesting is that the rule is actually sitting at the center of the digital transformation. So we're seeing a greater need for real time data enabled decision support to meet that need. The CFO is moving away from the traditional activities like transactions. And reports to a more strategic role. So they're driving business decisions and preparing the business for the future. CFOs are being asked to be leaders within this evolution, taking on advisory roles to the CEO leadership team and the board. And the speed at which digital transformation is happening is also producing a greater appetite for business risk. And in turn, the CFO will need to be more resilient and proactive in their strategies to innovate. We're also seeing trends where the CFO is taking on additional responsibilities like taking over the operations functions and the it and technology functions. And some would argue that the role is expanding and becoming increasingly more challenging. And I would, I would actually agree, but I would also say it's becoming more interesting. So the CFO has a wide perspective with visibility across all business functions. They can act as the bridge connecting and driving the business in a cohesive manner. And then they have this ability now at this point and the structure to influence leadership, to be change agents and impact long term growth within the business. And lastly, they're in this unique position to actually define their own path. In this digital age. Mitch: (04:48)Now let's go back to step one for just a second. What are some ways the finance function can actually transition from this cost center to this new value center that you mentioned? Monisha: (04:58)Yeah, so I think we're the hardest, but probably most needed task is to develop an agile analytical mindset within the department. So agile is the ability to learn fast, adapt quickly, and iterate. Often one of the ways CFOs can adopt an agile mindset within their teams is to foster more creativity and curiosity. It's about creating an environment where it's okay to innovate, embrace risk, and sometimes even fail on the process. So just remember to have a feedback loop in place for lessons learned when you actually implement this process. Cause that's very, that's a critical step. Some of the practical approaches implemented today have been to create special projects with small teams or rotate job functions within the department. And of course offer continuous learning. Agile requires a different set of skills and talents that I think the CFO is going to have to either train or hire for. And these skills include digital competency, predictive analytics, agility, and even the human skills such as empathy and decision making capabilities. Another equally important step in creating this value center is to to emphasize collaboration across functional departments. You know, interestingly enough, recent studies have shown that there's a direct correlation between effective collaboration and the rate of revenue growth. So in order for businesses to make better decisions, there needs to be greater collaboration and the continuous flow of information back and forth between the functions. One can foster collaboration by developing a platform, a mutual trust. And by this I mean a space where both parties feel safe to share and constructively challenge each other with the common goal to increase customer value. Lastly, spend the time and resources to optimize current systems and improve integrations like the long term savings and efficiency and agility the business will see from doing these initiatives are well worth the effort and costs upfront. And I cannot stress that enough. Like the goal was optimization is to transfer data seamlessly between systems like the ERP system and the CRM and the finance system and enables finance function to pull clean and accurate information on a timely basis. In today's environment, finance team spent an inordinate amou...

Nov 27, 2019 • 15min
Ep. 30: Fatima Mamod - Business Savvy Accountant
Contact Fatima: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatima-mamod-ca-sa-cia-60837876/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)Hey everyone. Welcome back for episode 30 of Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson and our featured expert guests for today's conversation is Fatima Mamod. Fatima is a chartered accountant, entrepreneur and a business coach from Johannesburg, South Africa who joined Mitch for a conversation on what she calls the business savvy accountant. Let's tune in now to learn more. Mitch: (00:31)In your opinion, what skills are most necessary for an accountant to be successful in today's business environment? Fatima: (00:38)Okay, so I think the most important thing, I mean we are accountants by profession is definitely the technical skills. I think that goes without saying. But on top of that is to have a very important elements I think. And the second one is business acumen. And when I say business acumen, you know, I really mean where you can tie in your technical skills with helping the business achieve what that moods to. So it's not just knowing or understanding how the business works, what's the dentist process? It's actually tying in your technical skills with what the business needs. And I'll use the data's process as an example. So we all know you need to do a data's check in the beginning. You need to ensure that they have a credit limit. You've done the credit fitting, etc. Now as the accountant, you know that what I've realized is simple things like this, sometimes within the company, people don't understand the importance of it until you're way down the line and you're not getting the money from your datas. So what I find is communicate, talk and let your sales people know why it's so important and how this impact and fix them. And that's a difference between understanding the business and business acumen which is really important. and then the third thing that too, we are never taught as accountants I would say, is communication skills. We understand numbers. We never thought how to present those numbers through a story that business leaders can actually understand. I mean, how many meetings have we been in where the accountant is just asked to then present the numbers as he or she is going through it. No one's actively engaging. They either busy with something else because we don't present our numbers in a way that tells a story of the business. And I find it really useful and what has helped me a lot and I get very great feedback, is when I present with telling a story and I do that by talking to my colleagues beforehand saying, hey, I see our sales that actually up this month. That's great. What was the reason behind the, it's how did it go? Was it customer A and tying that in. So when you're presenting the people you've spoken to actually feel like they part of your presentation, they feel like you're presenting a part of this story. And that's really key. Mitch: (03:01)Now, how do these different skills change or adapt when you're looking to be an entrepreneur? Fatima: (03:08)So what are the three realized and running three, four businesses of my own and then successfully selling them off my technical skills. As much as I thought they would either be center around my entrepreneurship journey, they were not. And I think that's a big common mistake that we make as accountants. We feel that because you know, I'm a charted accountant, I know what I need to do with the technical skills at the center know I find that your business acumen, your business knowledge is the most important thing when you start your entrepreneurship journey. They, you know who you do business with, the client you get into, they don't really care whether you're a charted accountant video to qualify the content by proficient, they have a problem and they need to understand that you as a person have the skillset to solve that problem for them. And they may not even realize that it's an accounting problem. So you need to be able to, again, the business actually meant to show them that the skillset that you have actually matches, and this goes with any business where they use starting their retail businesses as well. Customers and consumers will come in with a certain need and you have to be able to identify and resolve it for them. The second thing that I find is really important is on the leadership side, we learn accounting, learn everything on that but none of us had really thought leadership skills. So in that post communication, networking, networking is, you know, a baby that everyone uses. Attend networking sessions. Why don't you meet with this one? But how do you it yet? What do you go and what do you want to get out of attending things? Because time is key on skins, 50% of your time attending different events and you don't get any leads from me. So it's your leadership, your communication. When you attend these sessions, who are you targeting? Who are you going to meet? How are you going to start the conversation with them? Need to think all these things through before you go in. And the last bit is you need to identify within your mentors who's the right people to help you unlock the path that you need forward. Because an entrepreneurship journey can get very lonely and you cannot really resolve everything on your own. So you need to understand that it's certain points you will need help. And who are the people you can turn to for help. I remember when I started my practice the first three months I had not one client, not one lead. And that was really because I sat and I said, you know, I'm qualified to offer service. This is what I'm worth and I'm not willing to talk, negotiate or even understand what's happening in the market. And three months with not a client and then realize, you know what, entrepreneurship doesn't work like this. Mitch: (06:03)So you've used the word business acumen a few times now, but in preparing for our call, I know you referenced business savvy quite a few times, so I'm curious, what does an accountant who is business savvy actually look like? Fatima: (06:17)So I could find an accountant who is business savvy, what do they look like? That's the person who has a seat at every table with business decisions that are being made with strategies in discuss. Your opinions are actually in us and you have people who make these decisions within the organization come through and saying, Hey, this is what we're thinking. we heard your presentation or you really helped us on this exercise. What are your thoughts around this? How do you think we should approach this new contract that we are looking at signing with this customer? Do you want to join him in the meeting? And then when you join in, in the meeting, it's having a voice on the table that's actually hurt. And that's when you realize that your business acumen has translated to becoming business savvy. People now know what you bring to the table and people can see you as beyond just being the accountant in the business. Mitch: (07:16)Many of our listeners are more corporate accountants. So I'm curious, how does a business savvy accountant function in the corporate world as opposed to the entrepreneurial environment? Fatima: (07:29)So the key difference in the key item that's different in the two, and I've had seats on both sides. ...

Nov 25, 2019 • 19min
Ep. 29: Laura Landmark - Business Performance Management
Connect with Laura:https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-landmark/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbedHQf3GYH46-QoqMODU3ghttps://www.mantleanalytics.com/blogSoftware:https://www.bizviewsystems.com/bizview365https://onestopreporting.com/https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)Hey everyone. Welcome back to Count Me In. IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson. And today we're going to hear episode 29 of our series. Our featured expert guests for today is Laura Landmark, who spoke to Mitch from Norway about business performance management for a concept that everyone may not be too familiar with. Laura does a great job making important connections for accountants. So let's go ahead and listen to what she has to say. Mitch: (00:37)What is business performance management? Why is it important and why is it so hard? Laura: (00:44)That's a great question. Business performance management is actually a set of processes really that enables the, you know, the managers to to keep track on whether they're actually heading towards achieving their goals or not. I think that many people these days call it financial planning and analytics and you know, so there are, there are different words for it, but the reason why it's important is that without keeping focused on how the company's performing, there's a very good chance that you're not going to end up where you want to be. And especially with these days, things moving at the rate of knots, you know, moving so quickly, it's important to be fully on the ball and keep a track month by month, week by week, day by day, whichever is the relevant time-span on, on how you're performing against the goals and the targets for the company. And the reason why this is so hard is basically because there are so many moving parts, so it's not easy to, you know, to basically capture the actuals that are in the economy system and match them up potentially with the time registration that's going on in the time system. And then the project transactions that are in the project system and the whole ecosystem of, of different applications that exist in an organization make it very difficult to actually do unless you've got good systems in place of course. Mitch: (02:15)Now our main audience is the management accountants and you referenced financial planning and analysis. So from FP&A or business performance management, what is your view on the budgeting and the forecast that accountants are typically responsible for? Laura: (02:32)Yeah, that's, well that's another good question. I can resonate with your audience cause I'm also a chartered management accountant. So I took my exams in London, well many years ago, I think about 20 years ago now. And I have spent an entire career trying to look at the future of companies, the different companies that I worked with or worked for because that's what we're trying to do. You know, as management accountants, we're to take data and to utilize it for reporting, forecasting and prediction. Budgeting and forecasting are extremely important. I would say forecasting more so than budgeting because it says it's live information. Really, when I talk about forecasting, I'm talking about rolling forecasts. So every month that goes by is another month of history and an extended month on the end of the forecast, whether it be a 12 month rolling forecast or an 18 month rolling forecast. You know, in reality, we've used these for all of our customers for quite some years now that we've been working in this way. And I've had many stories of customers that have been able to use the rolling forecast for effectively managing their businesses and also avoiding potential fools and, and threats. So one particular customer that I worked with, she was very proactive. This was a few years ago now, and she wanted to build a very detailed cashflow forecast because I think she could detect that they were potentially troubles ahead. So I worked with her for a while and actually understanding her business, I'm putting together a driver base full cost for her, which would roll forwards and it rolled forwards for 18 months. So every month that went by, she could look forwards and see 18 months into the future. And what she could see that in month 16, there was this big cashflow Dip and for a number of different reasons, it meant that she needed to go and renegotiate some, covenants with the bank. Now, what we found and what I found is that if you can go to the bank with a full cost and with a set of financial statements that show, you know, your, profit and loss, your balance sheet, your cashflow forecast in, you know, a period of say 12 to 18 months, they love it. And it's so much easier to go to the bank and renegotiate terms when you actually don't need the money. You know, when you get to the stage where, you know, in crisis and you need the money now, then it's very, very difficult to actually work, you know, with the banks. Naturally they see the risk of lending the money or extending the times. So I would say, although full costs, you know, they, they can't tell you the future, nobody can tell you the future. And the goal of forecasting is not actually to predict the future, to tell you what might happen and to allow you to do that scenario planning. So what if this, what if that, and as I say every month that goes by as new information allows you to, to adjust the forecast, it allows you to play with the figures and to create a future before the future happens. Mitch: (05:46)So many of our previous conversations have been around data analytics and how there is technology available to really enhance this efficiency that you were talking about, you know, enable our management accountants to offer more foresight as opposed to insight into what's currently going on. So I'm curious what kind of technology you know, you are accustomed to or you know, is available to accountants to really improve in this planning and overall business performance, Laura: (06:15)Right? Yes. Well we primarily use three tools for this. And when we started all business, we went actually all over Europe looking at different types of tools, different types of software to actually create the kind of environment for our customers that we wanted to be able to create. And what we found is, you know, a range of different great software, you know, so there's a lot of software out there, but for us it was important that it was SQL based because that's what our skillsets are. So what we found a is actually a Scandinavian product, which has recently been bought up by I think an American company actually, but it's called Bizview365. And what happens? Well what happened when we found this product was that it wasn't particularly set up for accountants. Now accountants, you know, we work a lot with accountants and they typically have a portfolio of let's say 300 or 3000 clients. You know, they're often working with many, many, many companies. And this particular product that we found ...

Nov 21, 2019 • 12min
BONUS | Doreen Remmen - Today's CFO
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:05)Hey everybody. Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host Mitch Roshong. Thank you for joining us again today. You're about to hear the third bonus episode of our IMA focused mini series within Count Me In. We're going to listen to Adam speak with IMA CFO and senior vice president of operations, Doreen Remmen. This episode will be especially relevant as you'll hear Doreen talk about her various responsibilities which really highlight the changing role of the CFO in today's industry. I'll let Doreen and Adam fill you in on the rest. So let's head over to the conversation now. Doreen: (00:46)So Adam, it's really nice to have you visit me here in my office today. Adam: (00:50)Glad to be here Doreen. Could you tell us a little bit about your roles and responsibilities here at IMA? Doreen: (00:56)Sure. Well, as you know, I'm the chief financial officer and I have the traditional role of leading the finance organization. I ensure that our financial reporting and regulatory reporting are timely and accurate. I lead the budgeting process and I work with the external advisors, the accountants and attorneys, who keep us moving in the right direction. And thankfully I have a very professional finance team in place that's led by a highly skilled controller. So I have other responsibilities as well. My title is senior vice president of operations and my role goes beyond finance to include information technology, human resources, customer service and facilities. And here again, luckily I have wonderful teams in place and talented leaders. Adam: (01:46)So during, I also know you work with the board of directors. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Doreen: (01:50)Okay. Well, my favorite part of my job is being the staff liaison to the strategic planning committee of the board of directors. And in this role I ensure that we have a continuous systematic process for refining our strategic plan every year. And that includes collecting input from our stakeholders who could be our members, our staff, our board, our vendors, performing an environmental scan and risk assessment and communicating the strategic priorities. Adam: (02:22)So we know that there's many changes happening in the accounting industry. So how do your various responsibilities reflect those changes? Doreen: (02:31)Well, Adam, there's been a lot written about the changing role of the CFO and I think more and more finance leaders are broadening their scope and becoming involved in strategy. And I think this is very true in large companies, where the CFO may have been seen as a functional trusted advisor in the past. That CFO is now being called upon to be a true business partner in strategic decisions. And this requires that we expand beyond a financial reporting and develop those analytical skills that help us predict an influence the future. But I'm asked this question quite often, Adam. And what I've said before is nobody told me at the beginning of my career that I was supposed to just stay in the finance function and I had the opportunity to work as the finance leader in mid size companies typically, but not always privately held. And as the CFO I was always the next person to the CEO in every business decision. So people relied on me to bring my analytical skills to different roles. Uh, in the company that I worked at before IMA I was able to move into a vice president of supply chain role. I also worked as the vice president of sales and marketing for a period of time. Having competent leaders on the teams that reported to me was really important. Having a highly competent controller in place enabled me to trust that she had everything under control. And I could step away from finance when necessary, go on a sales call, close a deal, or visit a supplier's factory and try to understand if they had the quality systems in place that would make them a reliable partner in a supplier managed inventory program. So nobody ever told me I was supposed to stick to finance. If I'd gotten that lesson early in my career, I think my life would have been a lot simpler. But I've enjoyed my career and I've enjoyed being in a lot of different roles and I have a lot of different roles here at IMA as well. Adam: (04:43)So as you've already mentioned, how your different roles here at IMA kind of spread that and you've become that business partner with, you know, whether it's with the board or helping out with operations and in the finance function as well. Doreen: (04:58)I'm just naturally curious person. I'm nosy. I like to get involved in different things. And uh, here at IMA I'm passionate about what is going on because I'm an IMA member and I am a, was always a really important, support system in my career. So I'm passionate about making sure that we're doing the strategic things that will serve the profession in the future. Adam: (05:23)So on that same note, measurements and metrics are obviously very important for the CFO to monitor, as you've already mentioned. So what are a few keys of your key performance indicators or goals as a CFO at IMA? And how or why might they be different from those at a CFO to public organization? Doreen: (05:41)Okay. So many of our financial metrics are very, very similar. Even though we're not for profit, we operate like a for profit business, in a very disciplined manner. We look at all the traditional indicators of financial that include profitability, cashflow and balance sheet ratios that measure liquidity and stability. Of course we do all of those things, but as a mission based, not for profit organization, not everything we do has dollars attached to it. So we look deeply at measures of member engagement to understand whether we're delivering the value that we should be. Adam: (06:20)So one of the biggest areas of emphasis in finance and accounting competencies is data analytics. And we had, I may know that a very important and so how heavily, how heavily do you use or rely on data analytics for financial decisions and recommendations? Doreen: (06:37)Well, we rely very heavily on data to support our decisions. We try to walk the walk here at IMA and we know that data analytics are very important to all of our members. We look at leading indicators in our data such as the number of new candidates for the CMA program. We also look at things like pass rates on the exam by region and it's very important for us to understand the trends as they're developing. My staff has been exploring new technology products such as Tableau and the advanced features in Excel to unlock the secrets and the trends that are showing up in our database. We also look at external data such as the GDP in our target markets and the numbers of students that are graduating from accounting and finance programs at universities. Adam: (07:27)So how do you think the use of those new tools that they're looking at will help IMA]? Doreen: (07:3...

Nov 18, 2019 • 17min
Ep. 28: George Azih - Lease Accounting Standards
George Azih bio: https://leasequery.com/about-us/leadership/#georgeContact George: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgeazihleasesoftware/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:00)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson. And for this week's episode, Mitch spoke with the CEO and founder of Lease Query George Azih. This conversation focused on ASC842 and how lease accounting software can help businesses enhance their processes when complying with the new lease standards. George also offers a unique perspective on future changes to accounting standards. So let's go to the conversation to find out more. Mitch: (00:35)I know FASB has issued new standards pertaining to leases recently. What triggered these accounting changes? George: (00:49)Well, Mitchell, thank you so much for, for having me. Essentially it all begins and ends with transparency, right? essentially the boards FASB and ICB are concerned with making liabilities, which by definition mean obligations to make payments at some future time. Making these liabilities actually be reflected on the balance sheet under current gap and undercurrent for us what we have, most leases are called are classified as operating leases and these leases are no longer reflected on the balance sheet as liabilities are. The boards are trying to increase transparency and make financial statement users understand set transparency. And what they're trying to do is make those obligations to make lease payments be reflected on the balance sheets of companies that are, you know, entering the sunset set at least transactions. Mitch: (01:51)And what are the biggest challenges with these new rules? How have accountants been working through some of the challenges to make sure they're complying with these new regulations? George: (02:00)Well, interestingly, there's these three major items, right? One is complexity, the second is time, and the third is completeness. So let's start with complexity. The rules, the new lease accounting standards are 492 pages, right? 492 pages of documentation. Literally these are, I mean it's the fixed stack. So the sheer complexity of the new lease accounting standards is a big challenge. There's also some amorphous or a big use details there, right? Where companies have to, it's not exactly rules-based. So just to predicate this FASB is moving from rules-based accounting. So principles based accounting. Well this means essentially that rather than give you an exact means to explain the way things are supposed to work, they're giving you a general guideline. And what that means essentially is that it's not in black and white, right? So there's a lot of challenges with, first of all, understanding the spirit of what the boards are trying to issue versus the actual way they want you to account for it, right? So the sheer complexity of this standard is a big challenge. The second thing is how much time it takes to comply, right? There's a lot of things that you'll have to go through. Think about a large global corporation or even a small one. Think about the people that are within that organization that need to take part in the requisitions process, which leasing falls under, right? It could be someone in legal, it could be someone in purchasing, it could be someone in supply chain, it could be someone in accounting, right? There's so many people that, that any leasing, any particular lease introduction could could go through. And as such, if you want to capture your entire lease portfolio, these are the individuals that you or the departments, you know, accounts receivable, accounts payable, I'm sorry, not in accounts receivable, but accounts payable. These are the different departments that you have to actually hit. So in a global corporation, it takes a lot of time to coordinate such efforts. Right? The last part is completely it is very difficult for large corporations or even small corporations to determine, okay, what is my actual portfolio of these transactions? Right? It's not just the challenge here is that you don't identify a lease by reading the contract and it says you are leasing this asset, right? There's different things that could be deemed a lease. But in the contractual terms, it never states that it's a lease, right? So companies have this challenge where they have to look at all their contractual obligations to determine, okay, do I have all these, is this the least that should be that should be complied with under topic 842, 842 is the new lease accounting standard, is this a leak that should be followed under 842 or is this a service, a service contract? Right. So, the big three things there are complexity, as I said, time and completeness actually getting a complete look at your, your entire portfolio. Mitch: (05:23)Now what are your personal experiences with these new lease accounting rules? You know, what specifically triggered your initiative of creating a lease query? George: (05:36)Oh, that's a great question. And in my previous life, I used to be, I used to work in financial reporting and in accounting research. And that was my main role. Essentially what that meant is I had to look at what the upcoming guidance is. Upcoming guidance from what's called the EITF is called the emerging issues task force from the, which is a subset of the FASB, and figure out, okay, what are the upcoming rules that they're going to make and how do I make sure that the company gets the preferred accounting treatment? Right? So that was my main role. Now in the same company we, the company had the change auditors and they went from one big four firm to another, and the new auditor said, okay, we're going to take a deeper dive into the financials. And what they did was they looked at every single area to be deemed a risk worthy. And one of the areas they looked at were leases while they pet the pen of the least 10 of the leases at 10 out of 10 of them were wrong. They tested another 10 and tell them the tenor or the world. So basically there were batting, you know, zero out of, you know, zero out of 20 which obviously, you know, is below the Medusa line. So essentially what happened there is that they had to go through and figure out, okay, how do we account for leases in a global corporation? And the chief accounting officer tasked me with teaching the different controllers. I said this was a global organization, how to account for leases. Well, the challenge there was this was accounting for leases under the current at the time, current lease lease standard, which was relatively simple, right on the previously standard was it was topic 840, right? The new standards before the two. So this was accounted for under the easier method, which is 840. Now the boards change it obviously it's 842. And in my role as accounting research and, you know, financial reporting, that in that role, I knew that the boards were changing the rules, right? Going from this easy process to the new co, more complex guidelines. And so I figured, well, if as a company they were having challenges applying easy 840, then by God, when the new rules come and change when the new rules change, then it's going to be a huge headache for them. Right. Once again, batting zero out of 20 under current guidelines when it becomes more complex than it'...

Nov 11, 2019 • 18min
Ep. 27: Fatema El-Wakeel - Agile Project Management
Contact Fatema:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatemaelwakeelmbacma/Fatema's Blog: https://strategicalanalytics.com/Fatema's Articles:https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/may-2019-agile-project-management-in-analytics/https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/august-2019-further-demystification-of-agile-project-management/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:00)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson. And this week's episode, Mitch was joined by Fatema El-Zahraa El-Wakeel to talk about agile project management methodology. Fatema helps us understand agile by breaking down the process and giving us a simple how to, when looking to start using this project management methodology. Let's listen to learn more. Fatema: (00:30)So traditional project management model is really what we're used to seeing for several years. It consists of a project manager and a team of specialists who work on a project. The project team begins by meeting with the customer, can be another department or another company and external party depending on the project. And then once they collect the project requirements, they break it down into milestones. And then the project manager is tasked with keeping the customer posted on the status and completing the project. This model is really vulnerable to a lot of things like delays, miscalculations or unforeseen costs, which can be caused by the budget overruns or an overall failure to deliver a stated goals. Mitch: (01:25)How is the agile project management different than the waterfall method in terms of, you know, the variables that come along with the project and which methodology is better for analytics. Fatema: (01:39)So when you look at any project, really there are three main variables. The time set for the project, the resources that the project will be using, and the main thing is the scope. Oh, and in a traditional project management, the scope is fixed and obviously you can increase the resources by increasing the budget signing off an additional budget or adding additional employees to the project, the time needed is an estimate. People like to fix it. But normally, unfortunately you see overrun. In agile project management, the resources and time components are more fixed. While the scope is estimated. So you know that kind of the direction where you're going but it is not set on set in stone somehow. In agile because, because we are really responding to like the business needs. So we re we prefer using it in analytics project rather than sticking to a scope that is fixed. So normally what happens is a product owner, the product owner and the customer would agree on a, an MVP, which is the minimum viable product. I'm using this method. The time spent for the MVPs for each iteration is called a sprint. And at the beginning of the sprint normally the customer and the project team, agree on the sprint goals and the MVPs that are expected. And then they kind of establish a plan really to complete the work. And at the end of the sprint, the project team goes back to the customer to show the MVP and get the feedback. So they show the customer a demo of what they've done so far. Sometimes even you can go live with part of the project and launch it. And I think this is the benefit of using agile methodology in data analytics because you're utilizing the data. Mitch: (03:41)Now I know there are a lot of terms that I'm sure our listeners hear frequently, but may not necessarily know what they mean. So within the agile project management methodology, what are some of the most important facets and some of the terms that you should really understand to understand agile project management? Fatema: (04:01)That's a great question, Mitch really, because I think when you start using agile project management it's a bit overwhelming. Like when I first started i was like what are all those terminologies that people use? And what does that mean? I think few of them, well one of it is, for example the scrum and I'm a scrum is or no, those are normally regular meetings to reviews the progress of the adult project, similar to a project management manager. Oh the scrum master oversees the development process and ensures everyone is on track and it's really aligned to the planned sprints. Another term used is scrum of scrums and that happens when you have several projects, multiple teams working on different projects and they need to keep the wider team updated. Product backlog is another, term that is widely used and you can see as like list of tasks to be completed by the team, open items that the team needs to go through and kind of close in each sprint. Normally the product, owner and manages the backlog to ensure the product delivery. So he or she discusses with the, which items on the backlog need to be done. There's different like labeling, like if it's a should or could. How important is the item on the backlog. Mitch: (05:35)Now that we have a better understanding of the terminology that goes into agile project management, what is a practical example? Can you give us a case study or something that you've worked on where all of this kind of comes together? Fatema: (05:50)So let me think of an example. So, let's say a customer described some challenges with current reporting used for pricing and they explained that they would like, that's a visualization to understand relevant issues. So it's basically a visualization and analytics project. So I'm the agreed MVP in this case or the minimum viable project would be a dashboard that helps report pricing. The team working on the project agrees with the customer to me by weekly for example, and review the progress and MVPs based on expected sprint deliverables at the start. As you can see from here, the project time is agreed and it might be three months and the number of team members is, for example, set to five. So the main, the three main, um, facets, it's really of the radar project management is you have a scope, you know, the direction where you are, and in this case you're going towards a visualization project. You have the time set, which is three months, and you have the resources set, which in this case the team members, the five team members, Oh, the product owner in this case create some backlog listing the tasks needed such as tools used for the visualization, preliminary KPIs and other reporting requirements. The scrum meetings normally would occur daily and the scrum master would ensure everything is on track. A scrum meeting is normally like 10 minutes and it's a stand up. So everyone in the team would just say what they've done this day before what they're doing today. And like if there are any blockers so that in this case the scrum master would unblock those challenges that the team is facing. If you assume that at the end of sprint one the team meets with the customer to present and discuss the print preliminary KPI and the basic dashboards. So it's still the start of the project and the ...

Nov 7, 2019 • 10min
Ep. 26: Indra Moeljadi - The Evolving Role of the Business Partner
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm Adam Larson and today we're going to listen to Mitch speak with Indra Moeljadi from Switzerland about the evolving role of a finance business partner. In their conversation Indra talks about business partnering technology in analytics, strategic decision making and storytelling. Let's go to the conversation now. Mitch: (00:26)How has your role as a finance business partner and the head of finance changed over the last few years? Indra: (00:37)Yeah, so you know, I said progress in my career. I found out that it's less about the data crunching and more about finding a story within a numbers. You know, days of going through the numbers on a spreadsheet, there's becoming less and less, I mean, they still exist of course there's the bread and butter, but now I spend more time putting the numbers into PowerPoint presentation and then doing some analysis on it and presenting the analysis and the story to the organization. So as a finance business partner, you know the asks from the people I spend the most possibly thought as part they are commercial minded team. So you know, they're not really great with numbers. You know, they always ask how can I help them get certain messages based on the financials across the organization. You know, and to be able to do that, I need to understand a couple of things. I need to understand the business, why they say that we do, you know, whether the products work, all that stuff. I need to understand the organization. So who are the people that I'm dealing with that I'm interacting with. And then also the last thing is what message is it that they want me to convey? Cause that's really important in trying to, you know, be the right business partner. So for me it's more about understanding and preparing a story and less about data crunching numbers. And I've seen that over the past few years. And I also see people going into finance roles. You know, the technology is there that enables them to do the data crunching. So you know, you need to do a bit more than just the data crunching. Mitch: (02:10)How do technology and analytics skills help you and your team understand the business and the message you are trying to share as data change the necessary skillsets and how decisions are ultimately made? Indra: (02:21)Yes, I believe so. There's a lot of data out there. You know, take, take an example. In the past when I started, I started working almost 20 years ago, still worked on paper invoices and you know what we do with paper versus we take what's important only the important bits because we didn't have the resource nor the capability to store all the information. Nowadays one transaction has a lot of data points, you know, multiple data points in there. You have to date, customer location, payment method, delivery method, stock keeping, unit currency, everything else. And now we actually have the resources and capabilities to store all this data. So yes, we need to technological skills cause we need to be able to go to this data and filter out what is important. You know, what do we actually need and then once we find what's important we need the analytical skills to come up with a meaningful analysis that will aid this with the decision making process. So yes, and when we talk about strategic decisions, these are decisions impact in the future. Data that we have is from the past. You know, the historical data. So how do we take historical data and make a decision for the future with it and, and be sort of accurate sort of where we can predict the future. And technology really helps. There are lots of tools and can predict and forecast for the future. They can do trend analysis, they can, you know, it's obviously not perfect but it really helps a lot. But then on top of the technology, you also need our analytic skills and our experience. And that's fundamental because we should be able to predict, you know, when the peaks and the dips are in the sales from an expenses should be able to predict and calculate return of investment and then adding our ethics skills and our experience on top of that. Then we get a good story and then you know, we can have the right parameters to make the strategic decision for the organization. Mitch: (04:13)Business partnering, strategic decision making. These are popular terms today relating to finance, but another one that seems to be becoming even more important, and I know you referenced it earlier, is storytelling. So what exactly is storytelling and how does it fit into the finance function? Indra: (04:28)So storytelling and finance to me it's a couple of things. One is translating the numbers into something coherent for the audience. Most finance people you know they get a headache when you show them an Excel table. And I've had that a lot where I give them access table and they just shake their heads and they don't want to even see it. So how do you make these people at ease with numbers? Right? So what do I do? I replaced the numbers for a story and that makes it understandable for these people. Now a lot of the senior managers in the organization that I've worked with, they don't have the time, neither nor the mental capacity to go through an Excel file. So as a finance business partner, it's our task to make the numbers understandable and to do that, you know, providing a story is a really good tool. And then also another aspect of storytelling in finances, stories have a distinct pattern, right? We learned that when we're children, as long as the beginning, a middle and an ending. And if you look at, you know, strategic decisions that, that a company's making, they also for beginning. Beginning being the reason why do we need to do this? And there is a middle, you know, to how, what's the process to get there? And then the ending, the ending is being like, what is the objective? Most companies started with the ending first, but then it all goes from the beginning of middle and ending. So by putting all of this in the story, it will help everybody. You know, cause we are as humans, we're conditioned to learn about stories all around us. Everything is about a story. That's how we are. This is how we grew up. This is how we are conditioned as human beings and also storytelling. It's the most powerful tool to pass on a message, right? But a good or bad, if you put a right story behind it, a bad message can become a good story. And vice versa. If you have the wrong story, a good message become a bad story. Right? And so, so if you have this tool, you know, use it because then the audience can relate to it and they can really understand what is going on. Mitch: (06:24)So let's put all of the pieces of this conversation together. What advice can you give to accounting and finance professionals attempting to develop a strategic driven story to add value to their organization? Indra: (06:35)So by telling a story, you're adding value to an organization. Now, would your business partner, would you prefer, would they prefer it? If you just give them an extra table and then get on with it. Or would your business partner prefer you tell them what is going on when you show them the numbers? I think it's most cases and I think majority, I'm pretty sure they just want to tell. They just want you to tell them what's going on....

Nov 4, 2019 • 15min
Ep. 25: Khaled Chowdhury - Finance Culture Transformation
Contact Khaled:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaledchowdhury/Blog: Getting started in #PowerBI for #Finance and #AccountingUnleashed | Beast BI - http://beastbi.com/unleashed/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:05)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm Mitch Roshong and in today's episode we'll hear Adam Larson talk with global finance data and tech leader Khaled Chowdhury as they discuss finance culture transformation. Khaled is the finance director of analytics and business intelligence at Cabot Microelectronics, but even with such a focus on data and technology, he really emphasizes the importance of focusing on people first and how any business transformation starts with the culture of the organization. Let's go to the conversation and see what else he has to say. Adam: (00:42)What is your philosophy on finance culture transformation? Khaled: (00:51)My philosophy around cultural transformation, I think it's not really exclusive to finance, but a culture is a living organism, which are the some off the people, right? And when it comes to cultural transformation, investing in technology usually backfires. And the best way I have found the philosophy of finance, culture transformation is to invest in people. However, investing in people, you also have to kind of go from an agile methodology. You kind of have to have small proof of concept, see if that works, if that works, you kind of push them on. And one of the key things as I pushed for change, even to this day, I think it's a quote from a peaceful warrior that's is the key to change is to spend all your energy building the new, not fighting the old, well. We're talking about culture transformation. It's not necessarily about finance or whatnot, it's people change, right? So essentially culture is what is acceptable, how people behave and what is and there's some at one point, what is acceptable and what is expected, right? The kind of culture dictates that part. And from that perspective, if we don't ask the question, especially in we're in the precipice of the fourth industrial revolution, it is about to change big time. I mean it has already, but it's the impacts are starting to shop in smaller spaces. People have been talking about all this new technology, whether it's gonna work or not, but the end of the day that most of the technology actually are in pretty good shape that it actually can be used. But the problem is we don't have any gold drivers. Driver means meaning the people who would drive the technology. Adam: (03:03)So then how would you take technology, you know, thinking about how technology is going to not take away jobs but change jobs. How do you infuse technology into your organization to kind of enhance its capacity? Khaled: (03:15)So I think I will quote something that I say to my boss, right? I say, if you want me to be around, I'm going to cause a rebellion. And he's looking at me like are you crazy? I'm, my answer was you want a revolution. But a revolution is only as successful rebellion. Right? So, and the reason I liked the concept of revolution is it happens from inward, not outward. And the reason I'm saying that is because think about in our finance organization, it would come to us saying hey, we have this great product called SAP, BPC or whatnot. They'll come to you, try to install those and it's going to make all our problems go away. At the end of the day, it takes our life. I want to try to do the implementation. But again, when it comes to actually using it, we've become slaves of the tool. So in terms of infusing technology to the business or the finest profession, I kind of see it as a relationship with the technology. Whether are you the master of the trilogy or are you the servant? Technology is an absolutely awesome servant, but absolutely a horrible monster. And coming from that perspective, the best way to infuse technology into any business on the finance function is to see how we can start inward. See take things that we're currently doing. What is it that we can do to automate and liberate so that we can focus on the next step. Right? And instead of trying to go from crawling too, running you have to kind of learn how to call better before you can even walk. Then you go from walking to running. And it is a lot of dependent on investing people to send them for training and giving them exposure to what is possible. Adam: (05:30)Thinking about a company that is, you know, trying to infuse this new technology and thinking that it's, you know, it's good for them, you know, having that business technologist on hand, you know, what kind of carry over similarities do you see in members of that transformation team that's kind of implementing these technologies? And then how do accountants and their skill set fit in, in that? Khaled: (05:59)So I think it's more about a mindset. So one of the concepts that's taught by Clay Christiansen, he wrote the innovator's dilemma. He's a famous professor and strategy is to focus on job to be done. It's kind of be the people who looks at the task or as something there is a meaning behind it rather than completely a task. They understand what job is performing because from one perspective, the job we're doing is not going away. But the task, how it is done is going to change. And people who can kind of come break the shackles of what has done before to be able to see farther. Right? This goes back couple of years when I was a, I was talking to my chief accounting officer and a in FP&A, so I came, came up to management accounting, then FP&A for a pretty long time now. And most of us who are successful in our jobs tend to be excellent. Right now there is two things you can do with becoming an excel wiz. You can just develop something that's nerdy or something pretty complex and for the heck of it versus whether you actually get, use it to get some job done. So it's a lot about coming out of your desk and going and trying to solve a problem. So it's essentially, it's business technology should do you have a business problem, you have a technology, go solve it. So think about in the old days, the accountants who would know whatever's to sell whatever skill set, whether it's Excel as a media, whatever they had, they would see a problem person in problem, they will come out of the desk and go solve that problem. I think the way Harvard put it is there is a premium on curiosity. So it's actually the curious mind that has a huge benefit in today's world because they usually tend to go find out what's working and what's not. Adam: (08:18)That makes sense. You know, it's good to have that curious mind. You know, and thinking about, you know, we've been talking about technology and how to, you know, transfer me and your team in getting that technology in there. But once you have that technology, you know, there's things like data analytics that are that seem to drive our decisions. You know, what would be the end goal of creating a data analytics kind of driven culture where you're looking at the data and making decisions based on that? What's the end goal of that? Khaled: (08:46)Okay. I think if you think from that perspective, right? Regardless ...

Oct 31, 2019 • 16min
Ep. 24: Debbie Jacobs - FP&A: Leadership and Relationships
Contact Debbie: www.linkedin.com/in/debbiejacobscmamba Debbie's Work:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tackling-fpa-budget-process-debbie-jacobs/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/improving-communication-within-fpa-debbie-jacobs/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:00)Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I am your host, Adam Larson and I'm joined as always by my cohost Mitch Roshong. We are here to bring you the latest perspectives and learnings in management accounting as told by industry leaders shaping the profession. For today's episode of Count Me In, Mitch spoke with Debbie Jacobs about cross functional relationships as FP&A leaders. Mitch, what kind of insight did Debbie have to share? Mitch: (00:33)Debbie Jacobs built strong relationships to ultimately drive change at many well known companies like Hewlett Packard, Honeywell and Johnson and Johnson. She shared her perspectives on forging relationships with cross functional departments and the value of aligning all teams activities with the same business drivers to become valued organizational leaders from the FP and a team. In our conversation, Debbie was also able to tell a lot of real life examples which made her answers very interesting and engaging. Let's go to this discussion now so you can hear for yourself. Mitch: (01:03)How do you go about building relationships with cross functional departments such as marketing, research and development or operations? Debbie: (01:19)You need to show a genuine interest in learning their perspective and their world. And you can go about that in a many different ways. One of my favorite ways of doing it was when I was with Johnson and Johnson. And there I would spend a day out with the sales rep. My finance role there was, I was the finance director supporting commercial operations, which was sales and marketing. And so by spending a day going out with the sales rep, I was able to listen to our customers but also see my business partners, that sales rep you know, going about his job or her job all day long and see what kind of issues they came up with and how they addressed issues as they came about. And I encouraged my team to do the same and it really gave us a different perspective on our, on our business partner. So in addition to showing a genuine interest in learning their perspective and putting yourself in their shoes, it also helps to be present where the informal discussions are taking place. You know, oftentimes we're in meetings with our business partners, but there's a lot of conversations that happen around the so called water cooler. And if you can figure out where those conversations are happening and become a part of the team that way and not in a forced way. But an example I would give is why was that Hewlett Packard and I had recently joined a new division that had been acquired. So the people, my business partners were all people coming in from a company that had been acquired. They liked to play Bridget lunch in the, in the company cafeteria. And, and so I learned to play bridge, which I haven't done before. Simply so that I had an opportunity to sit down with them at lunch and become part of those informal conversations. Mitch: (03:32)And why is it so important for these other operations or functions of the business to really buy into FP&A and, you know, how do you go about convincing them that, you know, you appreciate their relationship and what they have to offer? Debbie: (03:51)Sure. So in my experience working in FP&A, the senior leadership of the business typically looks to FP&A as the, the voice of reason or the voice of objectivity. And in order for us to fill that role, we really need to have a strong partnership build up with the other functions R&D marketing sales. So that we can look at the analysis from multiple points of view. And with that relationship with the business partners, we can drill down in our conversations. I like to call it the, the five levels of why which some of the listeners may have heard of and we need that relationship with marketing or R&D experts to engage with FP&A so that we can do that drill down past the first level of why. So that when the senior leadership turns in a meeting and looks at us and says, you know, what do you think we have enough knowledge beyond sort of the top level skimming of it, of whatever the business case may be, to really be able to answer thoroughly that we understand what is being asked for and give a solid opinion on it. An example I would give is early in my career I was actually a financial analyst at Hewlett Packard and I was part of this big cross functional team and we were investigating whether or not to expand the plant operation. And this was in semiconductors. Do we build a new way for fab to meet the increasing demand? Do we add a third shift to our existing lines? Do we outsource the information? And so as part that business case, I had to work with marketing on the forecasted demand. I had to work with its supply chain and all of the different options of running a third shift or what would it cost to build out a new plant or and then also with R and D, I had to partner with them on what is the technology doing and how is it changing and how would that impact our decision, but when it came time to present the business case, once we had made our decision and we needed a substantial capital investment, we had to take it up several levels within the company. And it still sticks to me to this day that I remember sitting in this room with a bunch of senior leaders and I was probably the lowest level in the room as a financial analyst. And yet the group level CEO turned to me and asked point blank from my opinion on the option we had chosen versus the other two. And they, he did that because we're supposed to be that objective voice. I don't have you know, something at stake here with the different options that were chosen. I'm trying to look at them objectively and that is the role FP&A played. But I wouldn't have been able to answer his question on the spot like that if I hadn't been able to do all of the due diligence ahead of time in partnership with the other functions. Mitch: (07:26)If everyone truly needs each other for a successful business strategy to be implemented, what are some of the biggest challenges in leveraging these relationships? Cross-functionally, Debbie: (07:38)The biggest challenge I've ever seen has, has been around communication. If communication isn't spot on then you cause a lot of confusion. You have information that may be out of date that you're using, that a business partner may have updated. Deadlines could be changing and you're not aware of it. So to be effective communication really needs to be frequent and timely and, and understandable. And I'll start with the understandable. And by what I mean by that is if I'm using technical finance terms that my business partners are familiar with, then the chances are I'm not going to get the information I need to do my job because I'm not communicating effectively on what exactly the data ...


