World Class Finance

Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) can no longer focus solely on accounting transactions and financial reporting; they must be strategic business partners, providing specific internal and external skills and services across their organisations. How can you prioritise the responsibilities of your finance organisation to reduce costs, improve information management, effectively communicate external financial information and provide guidance to CEOs and boards of directors on the financial implications of strategic decisions? 

We can help you transform your finance function to: 

Finance as the Leader in Strategic Thinking

  • Does the planning process drive value and focus?
  • Are the big new ideas conceived and executed with rigor?
  • How are cash flow and earnings optimised?
  • Does the market understand the business? The value? The opportunities?

Finance as the Promoter of Information

  • Are data standards, definitions, and sources consistently used across the organisation?
  • Do financial analysts and planners spend more time getting the information than using it?
  • Is analysis useful? Future focused? Are forecasts accurate?

Finance as the Risk Manager

  • Is the financial close, including management reporting, fully completed within 3-5 days?
  • Are asset prioritisation and management processes efficient? Effective?
  • Are compliant control and certification mechanisms in place?

Finance as the Driver of Efficiency

  • Has manual effort been virtually eliminated?
  • Are process performance metrics hitting internal targets? Best in class? Using what empirical basis?
  • Have leverage opportunities been optimised (shared services, offshore, outsourcing)? For example, corporations that have historically operated in silos can save significantly by implementing a corporate-wide, shared approach to support services, reducing the level of redundancies across the organisation.
  • Are processes siloed or viewed end to end?
  • When ERP or other operational systems were implemented, were processes optimised? Steps eliminated? Transaction flow challenged?
  • Have results from ERP (or other system implementations) been realised?
  • Has the company recently grown through mergers and acquisitions, leaving duplication in support infrastructures and systems?
  • Is purchasing management practiced?