Tag: CFO

CFO’s and Controller’s Many Hats: Etiology of Afflication, Part II.


So, let's take a closer look at the reasons why CFO's and Controllers end up with more responsibilities and a larger hat collections than other members of senior managerial staff, and why we should be proud of it.

First of all, it's responsibility by association.  Human resources are related to payroll and that is a monetary subject and frequently the largest budgetary constrain.  Accounting modules usually outnumber all other types in the IT systems, hence we have vested interests in their adequate development.  Business strategies are fueled by cash flow, investments and lending.  It is frequently up to us to determine whether the business has an ability to expand or needs to contract immediately.  In other words, we are far closer to these issues than anyone else.  That is why in the businesses where products have dollar signs in front of them (such as assets management, or commodities trading), Operations end up to be under CFOs and Controllers as well.

Secondly, in the eyes of our bosses and peers, we are the natural choice to undertake any responsibility because we usually possess broader work expertise, eduction covering both fundamental and specialize knowledge, and far more diversified industry exposure.  A capable Controller with good commercial acumen and working knowledge of fundamental accounting   principles is able to apply them to any business model, whether it is manufacturing, import/export, consumer products, services, or E-Trade.  I frequently say that it makes no difference for me what to finance, safeguard ad record: tons of chemicals, gold futures, multimillion mortgage packages, women underwear, or paper clips.  On the other hand, try to transplant a VP of Marketing into home insurance after he has spent 10 years in cosmetics, and he will be lost.  And how many VP of Sales you have met who could understand a legal contract?

The third force comes from within.  It has to do with our tendency of relying only on ourselves.  yes, we complain about our hectic schedules and inability to relax, but if we didn't take these multitude of tasks under our control we would be worrying sick about things going wrong: strategic initiatives taken that we are not able to support financially, software packages bough that cannot reflect the commercial activities properly, contracts signed with terms paralyzing our cash flows, etc. etc.  And we need to be on top of everything, because every commercial happening needs to be translated into an accounting event and reflected in our books.  Face it, my fellow financial professionals, we would not want it any other way.

In the future, with your valuable input we will address the issues of multifunctional optimization and the way to avoid being crashed under the burden of responsibilities.


 

CFO’s and Controllers’ Many Hats: Etiology of Affliction, Part I.


Many people tell me about their overwhelming span of control – the numerous responsibilities they have to attend to on daily basis.

It is not a secret that all CFO's and Controllers in small and mid-size companies store hatboxes under their desks and change on hat after another as daily needs require: just an hour ago you sat down at our desk in your business clothes attending to the natural responsibilities of finance and accounting, but here you are in the police chief hat enforcing civility of human relations, and there you are in a Napoleonic bicorn developing global expansion strategies, in a deerstalker applying forensics in search of a lost container, in a backwards baseball cap discussing with laidback computer geeks the requirement for IT upgarde, in a wig reading a legal brief, etc. etc.

The smaller the company, the larger the hat collection.  Just look at the job listings for our positions – usually it is a laundry list of duties frequently broken down into up to ten sections, each covering separate group of functionality.  Your scope of control is expected to encompass at least 30 diverse responsibilities. It is an established fact and we don’t need an evidentiary hearing to prove it.

Clearly this wide repertoire of roles is a major source of pressure and frustration we experience.  So, as the fist step on the road of improving our wellbeing, I thought it would be healthy to look at the etiology of this issue, i.e. to understand how we ended up in this state of affairs.  

Why other execs stick to their narrow niches of know-how? Why it is not a VP of Sales who is responsible for strategic planning? Why we are expected to be chief administrative and information officers, human resources managers and legal liaisons?  The answers actually may help us to look at this boatload of duties not as a punishment of fate, but rather as a source of pride and positive reinforcement.

The way I see it, there are three major forces pushing us into the realm of endless tasks.   I will describe them in my next post.