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the size of the organization.
So, what does a finance leader bring
and what is better left behind?
Tracking Talent
Regardless of an organization’s size, you
can attract and retain top talent. With the
same budget, you could assemble a small
staff of talented individuals or a large staff
of not-so-talented individuals. It’s up to
you to determine whichmodel fits best
with your new organization, but inmy
experience, quality is more important
than quantity when it comes to staff.
Although talent management may
appear as something to do when/if you
find the time, it is absolutely critical to
regularly step away frommonth ends,
management meetings, and so on, to as-
sess the talent of your team. Even if you
lack the support of a strong HR organi-
zation, finance managers can easily gain
access to tools used to conduct robust
talent management reviews. Over time,
if you clearly articulate your expecta-
tions, establish competencies, set clear
objectives, and take action with your
high performers and lowest performers,
your finance organization will improve.
Talent management is an area where
you are well-served bringing with you
the leadership skills you honed and
talent processes you implemented
while managing larger teams of people.
Leave behind the idea that you will have
clearly defined roles and responsibilities
for each individual; your organization
is smaller. However, if you attract and
retain the right talent, you can allow the
lines to be a bit blurry.
In terms of processes, the most diffi-
cult challenge is deciding where to start.
The biggest mistake you can make is
trying to improve all financial processes
at once. Recognize they’ll never be as
robust at a small organization as what
you experienced at a large organization.
Identify and prioritize improvements
to be made in budgeting, purchase-to-
pay, and order-to-cash processes. But,
rather than going after the low-hanging
fruit — automating the purchase
order approval process, moving more
vendors on to EDI— focus on holding
non-finance managers accountable for
their budgets. It’s your job to ensure the
budget management reports that are
necessary to support them exist.
Before doing this, gauge the level
of awareness around the company’s
financial targets.Then review how the
organization allocates expense budgets.
Dissect the company’s expenses, sort out
who controls what, align the manage-
ment reports you distribute accordingly,
and then hold people accountable for
their part of the budget. Once you have
the entire organization looking after the
expense base for you, you can spend time
bringing the day-to-day financial pro-
cesses into 2012. Pay as much as you can
electronically, improve payment terms
with vendors, and collect and apply your
cash quickly. Bring your business acumen
and project-management skills with you
to get the organization headed in the
right direction. Avoid trying to automate
the day-to-day financial processes right
away.They’ve beenmanual for a while, so
a minor delay won’t hurt.
Strengthening the
System
Upgrading systems is by far the biggest
challenge. You are most likely up against
a constrained capital budget and an
under-resourced IT department, and
these are not likely to be entirely in your
power to fix. Patience is the key. Systems
don’t improve overnight, but once you
commit to either a new system or to
improving your existing system, don’t
underestimate the time and effort it
takes to do it right.
To ensure that the team has a vested
interest in a successful implementation,
you need to be willing to offer up some
of your most talented permanent staff-
ers to work full time on the system-
implementation team. And, to make
sure you don’t burn them out in the
process, backfill, role with a full-time,
competent contractor. This will enable
them to focus 100 percent of their atten-
tion on the project.
Bring with you the vision gained
from having worked in an organization
where the systems were integrated and
fine-tuned to meet the needs of the
business. Leave behind the notion that
improving or implementing systems is
someone else’s concern— it’s yours.
When making the decision to move
to a smaller organization, do what you
can during the interview process to
assess where the “pain” resides in the
current finance department. Once
determined, this will help you decide
whether or not your bigger-company
skills will be of value to your new,
smaller organization. And, when
moving from a larger organization to
a smaller organization, bring with you
the knowledge and experience you’ve
gained over the years. After all, that’s
why you were hired.
Leave behind the expectation that
when you arrive you’ll find a completely
talented andmotivated staff, using world-
class systems, overseeingmature financial
processes. Your new, smaller organization
simply doesn’t have the same level of re-
sources. And, in reality, what you became
accustomed to at the larger organization
is probablymore than they need at the
smaller organization.
If you move to a small organization,
keep in mind that trying to perfect
everything will frustrate you and drain
your company’s resources unneces-
sarily. There’s a word for perfection in
business: inefficiency. Bring with you a
“fit for purpose” outlook and leave the
perfectionist behind.
✣
“
THE BIGGEST
MISTAKE YOU
CAN MAKE IS
TRYING TO
IMPROVE ALL
FINANCIAL
PROCESSES
AT ONCE.
”
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