CA(SA) - BEING A STRATEGIC EXECUTIVE - What does this mean?
Clive Kaplan CA(SA)
??Top-Rated Executive/Leadership/Career Coaching | Seasoned Business & Corporate Executive (over 25 years of hands-on experience, largely in the listed company environment)
Too often my clients tell me that they want to be more involved in strategy.
My first question is 'what do you understand by the word strategy?' The answers vary across the board, none of which usually deal with what I understand to be strategy!
So here is a simple way of looking at what strategy entails:
STRATEGY IS ABOUT WORKING ON THE BUSINESS INSTEAD OF IN THE BUSINESS.
Simply put, it's about keeping a bigger picture view and being proactive in dealing with issues. It might also include the question - "where to from here?".
Here are some questions that might relate to strategy:
- Are the IT systems serving the financial needs of the company?
- Is the cash management process adequate enough to ensure the company does not run out of funds?
- Are adequate governance issues in place?
- What are the business risks and have they been considered and mitigated?
- What are the implications of Integrated Thinking on the business?
- What are the implications of the new IFRS discussion papers and when will they need to be implemented?
- What are the implications of changes to the Income Tax Act, Labour Act, Companies Act etc and how will they affect the business?
- Should the accounting function be centralised - substantial cost savings could result and hence motivate upgrading the IT systems?
- Should the distribution/warehousing function be outsourced?
- What of business intelligence - is the IT function giving meaningful information to better run the business. For example is there a daily Gross Profit report by division by product or a stock ageing report that doesn't show returned stock as new?
But it is very important to remember is that you cannot work on the business if your basic financial information is coming out late and incorrectly. Your primary function is to have solid financial reporting systems that give the right answers ON TIME!
Until you have that, forget about strategy!
(Originally Published on October 20, 2015)
CFO | FD | Finance Executive | Head of Finance
6 年Thanks for sharing Clive! I like the simplistic description on what strategy entails... Based on the description - What puts us as financial executives in the prime seat to be that business partner when it comes to strategy, is our fundamental understanding of the numbers in the business and the ability to translate that into information that is required to work on business. There is no getting around it, everything that happens in a business, ends up or will end up in the numbers. Echoing and also agreeing on the final comment made; if the numbers being reported are not accurate and not ON TIME, then getting that in place should rather be the focus area first.
Chief Financial Officer - Real Estate
6 年Agreed Clive. Basics in place first and the rest will come much easier
Senior Financial Accountant/Finance Manager/IFRS/Internal Controls
6 年Wow. We are working on a project involving a company whose perfomance has been on the downward trend. Matters you put here are what we are directing management to look at. Strategy is a very interesting aspect of any business.