George Benaroya’s Post

Balancing Short-Term Cuts with Long-Term Investments: Essential Insights for CFOs For CFOs, balancing short-term cost reductions with long-term investments is crucial for growth. Here's how to manage it effectively: Short-Term Strategies: Quick Wins - Cut Ineffective Spend: Eliminate underperforming elements like outdated campaigns or unused content, reallocating resources to higher-impact areas. - Prioritize Essential Investments: Focus on expenditures that deliver immediate value, such as customer success tools or technologies that - enhance understanding of anonymous website visitors, improving ROI and efficiency. Long-Term Strategies: Future-Proofing - Invest in Emerging Tech: Allocate resources to technologies like AI and machine learning to stay competitive and adapt to market changes. - Customer-Centric Investments: Invest in customer success initiatives that drive long-term loyalty and growth by understanding customer needs. Enhancing CMO-CFO Collaboration - Clear Communication: Align on shared metrics and objectives, tracking progress with a common dashboard. - Cross-Functional Language: CMOs should avoid jargon and communicate in terms familiar to CFOs, improving decision-making and understanding. - Cultural Alignment: Foster a customer-focused culture by integrating feedback into both financial and marketing strategies. For CFOs - Understand Marketing's Role: Develop a clear understanding of marketing's impact on growth, including metrics like brand value and pricing power. - Support and Collaborate: Work closely with the CMO to evaluate and prioritize marketing investments for long-term success. Building Stronger Relationships - Frequent Meetings: Regularly align on priorities, challenges, budget, and strategy. - Empathy: Understand each other's constraints and work collaboratively to strengthen the partnership. By balancing short-term cuts with strategic long-term investments and enhancing collaboration, CFOs can avoid short-sighted decisions and fragmented teamwork. This ensures that immediate cost reductions don't hinder future growth, and marketing aligns with broader business goals. For more insights, join our preview event with Future CFO. Discover essential skills to enhance your role and strategy. Register here: https://lnkd.in/ezf5nccm #FinanceLeadership #CFOInsights #StrategicInvestments #BusinessGrowth #FutureCFO

𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑶𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑴𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔! We are Inviting everyone to share their ideas, experiences, and suggestions on how CFOs can help growing companies grow faster and more stable. We thought of 4 areas CFOs can improve to help growing companies accelerate more. 1. Align finance closely and coherently with the direction of the company 2. Develop thorough and effective financial strategies 3. Supply chain and cash flow efficiency What's your take, do you know many areas where CFOs can work to induce speed in the growth of the company?

Fot the third article of our CFO series, we wanted to talk about digital transformation for CFOs. How are they leading this transition ? What are the challenges and obstacles they face? Our new article is available here: https://lnkd.in/ehvrVg2m

🔑 The CMO & CFO Dynamic: Friend or Foe? 🔑 In today’s fast-paced business world, the relationship between the CFO and the CMO is more important than ever before. Yet all too often, marketing is seen as a cost instead of a value add, with marketing feeling like they don't have enough financial resources to make a difference, while finance feels like marketing is asking for too much or not delivering real results. Marketing is the function with its finger on the pulse of the industry and its customers, and done well, is the driver of revenue and growth for any successful organisation. By working together, these two power players can together drive business growth, mitigate risks and ensure resilience in the face of change, all of which leads to improved financial performance and sustainable business success. So how can this be done? 💡 Shared Goals: CFOs can support marketing by identifying goals, objectives, and budgets. Marketing can then showcase ROI and value. 💡 Informed Decisions: Joint collaboration allows for leveraging financial insights, leading to more informed marketing decisions and better optimised budgets. 💡 Joint Risk Assessment: Adapt strategies together to stay competitive during market shifts. 💡 Tech Investments: CMOs provide insights on tech improvements; CFOs analyse financial implications. Aligned investments ensure success and minimise risks. AND ABOVE ALL 💡 Trust: A true partnership is based on trust. The CMO and CFO must have awareness of and empathy for each other’s challenges and concerns. Unlock the power of a strong CMO-CFO partnership with our exec search dynamic duo: Sarah Daniels (Wallace) Daniels – Head of Practice for Marketing Jo Riley – Business Director for Finance   #Leadership #CMO #CFO #BusinessGrowth #Collaboration #Marketing #Finance #ExecutiveSearch #recruitment 

“The automation of finance and accounting processes can also help organizations attract and retain the next generation of leaders by providing them with opportunities for more meaningful and efficient work.” Our CFO Jennifer Ryu discussed how finance and accounting functions are keeping pace with digital disruption in Strategic Finance Magazine's latest CFO to CFO column. Read the full Q&A to find her insights on how leaders are building more flexible finance teams and how CFOs are influencing technology investments as their roles evolve. https://lnkd.in/g8XXtMgE #DigitalTransformation #FinanceTransformation #CFO

𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐊𝐏𝐈’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞! 📈 Remember what Management Guru Peter Drucker said:  “𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒆.” KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, serve as vital tools for businesses to track their performance and advancement. This financial metric is crucial for FP&A teams, aiding them in evaluating their success in achieving team goals. To identify suitable KPIs for reporting, it is essential to align with both organizational objectives and industry-wide metrics used. A good KPI framework covers the leading (predictive and prescriptive insights) and lagging (descriptive insights) metrics. Other important considerations are, 💡 Focused vision is of key importance, choose 5-6 KPIs for focused tracking, ensuring an unclouded vision for business performance. 💡 Fixing accountability helps in keeping a close eye on the metric, having an FP&A leader track the KPI helps to integrate it into organization’s operating cycle. 💡 Reliability of data is of key importance. A good and consistent data set is quintessential for decision making. 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐊𝐏𝐈𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: 1. Revenue Growth: ✔ Indicates overall organizational health. ✔Evaluates sales and marketing strategies. 2. Gross Margin: ✔Measures profitability of core operations. ✔A Higher Gross Margin indicates production efficiency and effective pricing strategies. 3. Operating Expenses Ratio: ✔Reflects efficiency in cost management. ✔Identifies areas for cost reduction. ✔A lower ratio indicates effective resource allocation and better profitability. 4. Cash Conversion Cycle: ✔Measures the time to convert investments into cash flow. ✔ Evaluates working capital management. ✔ Cash Conversion Cycle = DIO + DSO – DP 5. Return on Investment (ROI): ✔Assesses profitability of investments. ✔Guides investment decisions and resource allocation. ✔A higher ROI indicates successful projects and efficient capital allocation. The way in which your FP&A team aligns with your organization and tracks financial KPIs can mean the difference between a good financial year and an exceptional one. How do KPIs shape your FP&A decisions? Share your experiences! #KPIs #BusinessSuccess #FPNAExcellence #finance #fpna

Catalyzing Change: How CFOs Are Driving Digital Transformation in Finance CFOs are leading digital transformation as innovation reshapes business dynamics in the digital age. They play a pivotal role in driving change within their organizations. Read More : https://lnkd.in/gfhs2JJ6 #frontlineofficers #digitaltransformation #businessdynamics

Transform your business by transforming your people. 💪 Learning and development (L&D) can be a superpower that enables organizations to own their transformation, driving success from within. We've seen it firsthand. We've empowered global finance firms, retail giants, and public sector entities - to name a few - embedding L&D into their transformation journeys. The result? They took control of their future, steering away from the dependence on external consultants. Ready to unlock your organization's potential? 💡 Scroll through our slides for 6 essential steps to harness L&D and transform your business. Want the full picture? Dive deeper with our thought paper – download it from https://lnkd.in/empkA5qd #OwnYourTransformation #LearningAndDevelopment

#Driving Performance, Delivering Value# I'm passionate about driving performance and creating value for our stakeholders. In today's dynamic and competitive landscape, it's crucial for finance leaders to go beyond the numbers and become strategic partners in driving business growth. Here are some key strategies I've implemented to achieve this: 1. Aligning Finance with Business Strategy: Ensuring finance goals are tightly aligned with the overall business strategy, ensuring financial decisions support strategic objectives. Partnering closely with business leaders to understand their needs and challenges, providing them with the financial insights and support they need to succeed. 2. Optimizing Financial Performance: Implementing rigorous cost management programs to identify and eliminate inefficiencies, maximizing profitability and resource allocation. Leveraging data analytics to gain deeper insights into financial performance, enabling informed decision-making and proactive risk management. 3. Driving Revenue Growth: Identifying and evaluating potential growth opportunities, providing financial analysis and support for strategic investments and acquisitions. Partnering with sales and marketing teams to develop and implement effective pricing strategies and customer relationship management initiatives. 4. Investing in Talent and Technology: Building a high-performing finance team with the skills and expertise necessary to navigate the complexities of the modern business environment. Embracing innovative technologies like automation and artificial intelligence to streamline processes, improve efficiency, and gain deeper financial insights. By focusing on these key areas, I believe finance can play a pivotal role in driving organizational performance and creating sustainable value for all stakeholders. #CFO #ValueCreation #PerformanceManagement #StrategicLeadership