The CFO as Chief Growth Officer

© 2018 The Hackett Group, Inc.; All Rights Reserved. | 3000174 Finance Executive Insight I The Hackett Group I 1 The CFO as Chief Growth Officer The New Role of the CFO One of the CFO’s critical roles is helping management optimize the company’s deployment of its financial resources. To deliver on this mandate, CFOs require an unencumbered view of the company’s monetary assets. Using new, cloud-based treasury management systems, they can see through legal entities, bank account structures and geographical barriers to get a real-time view of the company’s financial position. The technology gives them clearer line of sight into future liquidity, and thus lets them make more valuable contributions to critical business decisions, such as making transformative investments and renegotiating vendor terms. They can also help fund growth opportunities by condensing the cash conversion cycle to release significant amounts of cash and minimize the cost of external borrowing. By adopting treasury management systems (TMS), CFOs can advance their company’s growth objectives in the following ways: 1. They can optimize the company’s generation of internal cash flow. 2. They can provide real-time visibility into current and future cash. 3. They can deliver a holistic view of the company’s risk exposure. Shortening the Cash Conversion Cycle Using new, technology-powered supply-chain finance approaches, CFOs can see across the entire financial supply chain and enable transactions like reverse factoring (see sidebar on next page) . TheTMS can connect buyers and sellers of receivables directly and facilitate the application and exchange of early payments or calculations of dynamic discounting. This helps CFOs find opportunities to reduce companies’ days sales outstanding (DSO) to By Nilly Essaides and Bryan DeGraw Finance Executive Insight Management Issue August 1, 2018 Executive Summary CFOs are working side by side with the CEO and board to set strategy and chart the growth trajectory of the enterprise. They are facing an increasingly volatile global business environment, one reshaped by disruptive technologies and the emergence of new global competitors and business models. To ensure their companies thrive, top executives need insight into the financial performance of the organization, so they can make rapid decisions about future resource allocation as fast or faster than their industry peers. CFOs, supported by their treasury teams and technologies, have access to the company’s financial liquidity position and the ability to pull specific levers to free up cash and enhance the company’s ability to achieve its growth targets. How treasury technology can help CFOs better support growth objectives