CEOs have to keep several balls in the air; they mostly get carried away by Operations, Planning, Purchasing, Design, Production, Quality Control, Marketing, Finance, Manpower, Public Relations, Growth and Delivery commitments. As a result, the focus on profit maximization, resource utilization and consistently creating value for investors are sometimes compromised.
It is the job of the CFO to wake up every morning and do whatever it takes to address the interests of the investors. CFO has to ensure that the financial resources are optimally utilized at all times. The performance metrics and financial ratios are up to the industry benchmark or consistently improving. These activities are vital for the growth of a company.
Today, CFOs are providing not only financial planning and analysis, but also information about where the business is going and how quickly it is getting there. They are deeply involved in developing, supporting and enabling strategy and they work side-by-side with the CEO. Involvement in corporate strategy has become an integral part of the job.
Result oriented CFOs are always high in demand and needless to say that they are beyond the reach of relatively smaller organization. In terms of financial activities in smaller organizations one could see only accounting and annual auditing. But these activities have nothing to do with business growth. These are mostly reactive activities for compliance. CFO’s job is to be proactive and forward looking.
Just because smaller organizations can’t afford full time CFOs, doesn't mean that they need their services any less than the larger organizations. Smaller companies need them as badly as their big brothers. Understanding the real and practical problems faced by such businesses, Brainchild Business Solutions has introduced shared CFOservices. Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) typically require high-end CFO services to manage their growing business. However, limited resources compel these companies to settle for lesser skilled individuals doing the job for them. Shared CFO Service bridges this gap.
Shared CFO provides almost all financial services including Financial Results & Analysis, Bank Loan Documentation, Strategic Business Advisory, Cash Flow & Budgeting, Raising Private Equity & Venture Capital, Preparation of JV and International Collaboration, Financial and Statutory Due Diligence, Preparing SMEs for IPOs and many more. By the shared CFO service offering, the same quality financial services have been made available to the smaller companies as well that were till recently only accessible to large, established and listed organizations. The shared CFO Service engagement has matured over time with ethics and best practices including: having just one client in each business domain, non-disclosure agreement where information security and confidentiality is maintained. Adoption of shared CFO Service is quite encouraging especially in SME sector. Many start-ups too have been lately seeking CFO services to ensure financial concerns are taken care right from the start.
Khalid A. Khan
