Over the past two years, many industries were financially impacted by Covid-19, in ways nobody could possibly have predicted. However, as in the last financial crisis in 2007-08, the best performing companies looked to improve productivity, which provided the capacity to grow quickly once into the recovery period.
There is no doubt that hiring a full time Chief Financial Officer (CFO) makes complete sense when a business reaches a certain size or an advanced level of complexity in structure. There is also no question that a CFO occupies a crucial role in growing a business’ profitability, especially in the longer term. The decision facing business owners, is when is the right time to bring on a full-time CFO or whether there are benefits to having a part-time or outsourced CFO until a full-time CFO role stacks up financially.
Most small to medium sized businesses (SMB's), whatever their business sector or the types of products they produce, or services they offer, face the same challenge at some point in their lifecycle. They all need help with their financial reporting. Entrepreneurs who start businesses are fantastic at identifying opportunities and the need for new products and services and can talk for hours about what they are working on and the opportunities they have identified. However, when faced with financial reporting and compliance, they are often uninterested and lack understanding.
Numerous small to medium sized businesses (SMB) have outsourced their CFO function to a CFO Service company and for a number of good reasons: The costs of a full time Chief Financial Officer (CFO) are often prohibitive for a small or medium sized company. It is virtually impossible to find a part time CFO, often because experienced CFO’s who want to work part time are working for CFO Service companies and not available for smaller organisations.
Outsourcing CFO services will give companies all the benefits of having a highly skilled and experienced Chief Financial Officer (CFO) on their team, but at a much-reduced cost.
Organisations normally engage in developing a robust CFO Profile when they need to recruit, however conducting the same process within your organisation when recruitment is not the focus can have great benefits for aligning business strategy with the individual and team.
There is a common misconception out there that a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a role only available to the large corporate. However, if you continue to hold this view you could be doing your business a critical injustice. Having the commercial guidance that a CFO can provide to get your business from where you are now to where you want to be is one of the best investments a business owner can make.
Join 10,000 other people and get answers on how to improve your business, financials, human resources and more.
©2024 CFO Australia. All rights reserved. Legal & Privacy