CFOs Have the Power As consultants who work exclusively with CFOs, we understand the myriad demands on today's CFO. The CFO will certainly be involved when a consultant is trying to do any work across an organization, but he/she is not a gatekeeper to be avoided by consultants. Rather, we believe that consultants who address the strategic needs of the CFO as they relate to the entire organization will find themselves winning more engagements.

A Day in the Life of Today's CFO

The CFO has a vast spectrum of both responsibilities and stakeholders that constantly pulls him or her in different directions. Stakeholders include the CEO and the rest of the C suite, the Board of Directors and regulators. In addition, the CFO needs to play a guiding role to the rest of the organization by enforcing spend policies, ensuring business operations, accurately forecasting future performance and providing data back to managers to enable sound business decisions.
Adding to this complexity is the typical corporate organizational structure. For many companies, IT, HR, and Legal fall under the CFO organization. Responsibilities for each of these divisions vary widely and a CFO must develop a depth of knowledge on issues such as:

  • IT Effectiveness
  • Contract Management
  • Human Resources Management Systems
  • Payroll
  • Risk
  • Treasury Management

The CFO organization reports on these and many other company divisions to the board of directors each month. Whether these groups report directly to the CFO or through a dotted line, they can have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the CFO organization as a whole.

The CFO Agenda With sufficient understanding of all the CFO's functions, you can learn to develop more successful project proposals. Through a series of interviews, surveys, and our years of experience, we have developed a framework to consider the CFO's responsibilities and goals. We call this framework
the CFO Agenda. In the CFO Agenda framework, we group the responsibilities of a CFO organization into three categories: Accountant, Protector and Business Leader.

As an accountant, the CFO's goal is to be fast and accurate with daily and weekly accounting, cash flow projections, budgeting and reconciliation. A CFO focused on the Protector role wants to ensure there are no surprises to the business and does so by focusing on contract management, internal controls, and compliance. Finally, the CFO's desired role of Business Leader offers the opportunity to be forward looking and strategic, offering business intelligence and guidance for business growth.

The CFO Agenda is a set of initiatives focused on people, process and technology. It is designed to streamline the Accounting function, optimize the Protector role, and elevate Business Leadership activities, enhancing the value of the CFO organization. The CFO Agenda was created to help CFO organizations focus more time and energy on leading their companies in new ways, including business forecasting and enabling better decision-making, while becoming best in class with their accounting function.

Our research shows broad agreement that CFO organizations could positively impact their companies by focusing more on business leadership activities. Those include long-term strategic planning, evaluating new business models, and building support for new initiatives. When CFOs find their time freed up from the accounting and risk management roles, they can step into the leadership role that provides greatest value to their organizations.

The CFO Agenda framework succinctly defines how the CFO organization supports the business. CFOs are adopting this framework to help them decide how to allocate their resources and focus their efforts. Everything the CFO does needs to be tied to one of these activities—streamlining accounting so that it is fast and accurate, optimizing the amount and types of protection employed for the company, and increasing the strategic leadership that they provide to the company. In order to win the CFO's approval, you need to tie your engagements to one of these three goals.

Getting the CFO's Attention

A marketing manager walked into the CFO's office at a mid-sized client of ours. She wanted to upgrade the company's CRM system, which would cost about $30,000. The CFO asked, "Will it reduce headcount? Will it automate any processes? Will it increase revenue? Will it improve decision-making?" The manager wasn't sure. "Then get out of here!" exclaimed the CFO. Impolite, but honest.

CFOs are concerned with project plans because they know a mismanaged project is worse than not doing the project at all. With so many stakeholders asking for capital, today's CFO does not rubberstamp anything. To the extent that they see weaknesses, they will reject a project.

CFOs are only driven by a few key things: costs, revenues, efficiencies, sound decision-making and protecting the business.Project proposals that create a business case and solve one of these needs within an organization will rise to the top of every CFO's agenda. To speak the language of the CFO and increase your chances of getting your project approved, ask yourself if you've addressed the following questions with your proposal:

  • How does the project support the strategic initiatives of the company?
  • What is the business case; that is, the clear value to the overall business?
  • Why is this proposal more compelling than the current situation?
  • How does it impact revenues or costs, by how much, and when?
  • Because CFOs are focused on efficiencies, how does the project assist in automating key business processes?
  • How will this project increase access to real-time business analytics and improve decision-making across the company?
  • Which are the key project risks and how is the team planning to mitigate those issues?


CFO Agenda Strategy Summit
We recently hosted a CFO Agenda Strategy Summit in San Francisco where Bay Area finance professionals networked and gained insight from a panel of CFOs from local companies. This discussion shed light for us on how to get their attention and sponsorship of business initiatives.
The panelists included:

  • Christine Tsingos, CFO, Bio-Rad
  • David Liebman, CFO & Board Member, ConGlobal Industries
  • Jim Tropp, VP-Corporate Controller, Diamond Foods
  • Christa Quarles, CFO, Playdom
  • Matt Roberts, CFO, Open Table

In their own words, the CFOs categorized their roles within their companies as: Chief Educator, Business Consultant and Solution Provider. Consultants who assist the CFO in excelling at these roles will see immediate results. In addition, it is also wise to appeal to the CFO for guidance before developing a proposal.
Many CFO's have mandates that require them to serve as an "educator."

For instance, one of our clients has just instituted a spend management initiative to reduce costs by 18 percent over the next three years. That CFO organization must enlist and, therefore, teach all employees how to reach that ambitious cost-cutting goal.

From the consultant's perspective, if you do not know how to articulate the advantages of a proposed software implementation project, appeal to the CFO's "business consultant" persona. A key aspect of that role is playing the dispassionate decision-facilitator who considers projects analytically rather than emotionally or politically. By partnering with the CFO whose field of vision is necessarily companywide, you help the CFO to serve as a "solution provider" for not just a single division but for the company as a whole.

At the outset of this article, I sought to disabuse the reader of the concept of CFOs as "gatekeepers." In truth, 86 percent of those we surveyed said they would like to be regarded as business accelerators or providers of analysis. Selecting strategically sound investments is one way CFOs can propel themselves into their desired business leadership positions. And the consultants who find ways to advance an organization's CFO Agenda will find their projects consistently approved and budgeted.

Tom Mescall is Partner-in-Charge of Consulting at accounting firm Armanino McKenna. He leads the firm's CFO Agenda, a set of initiatives focused on enhancing the value of the entire CFO organization through people, process and technology. He can be reached at tom.mescall@amllp.com.

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