Show me a business that

Show me a business that deploys sound financial statement disciplines  and I will show you a business that outperforms any of its peers.

 

Yes you heard right, financial statements and performance go together.

 

The secret is how these financial statements are used to drive performance. If deployed in the right way financial statement create the guiding light called FOCUS. We call this the Financial Performance Discipline.  (FPD).

 

Your financial statement are a powerful competitive weapon if used in the right way. The Financial Performance Discipline (FPD) combines structure, methodology and technology that ensures organizational focus on  the right thing.

 

This may sound a like a big job with a high price tag, actually it requires one hour a month, and 3 hours a quarter and can be installed and fully operational for $1,200. (includes the financial statement management software plus the training to get you up and running). The FPD is integrated as part of your management meeting and best of all it is driven by you.

 

The Financial Performance Discipline will guide you from "how well you are doing" to "how well you can do". Creating a performance culture that:

 

• Is measured and accountable
• Developed around 5 focus areas
• Structured and disciplined
• Makes strategy aligned with financial outcomes.
• Integrates and forces ALL key manages to make decision that positively influence the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash statement

The FPD is not the domain of the CFO or the controller it is a management system that impacts and influences all key managers in the business. THE FPD ensures all managers are aligned with the right financial outcomes.

 

If you are prepared to commit  3 hours of training and installation to transform your business based on measured accountability

Please Contact agien@gfbridge.com 925 323 2802

Using common knowledge to manage risk

The power of knowledge is well known to all of us. How we distribute knowledge within our business can be a very efficient way of managing risk. If critical business knowledge is housed within different  organizational functions without a conscious way of sharing the knowledge creates these  “knowledge power” islands within the business.

 

He or she who has the knowledge, has the power and how this power is used can be for the good or be most harmful. Information technology departments often use this knowledge power to their advantage either unconsciously  or other wise to dictate what will be done or wont be done whether it is for the common good or not.

 

Another example of knowledge power may be found in the finance department. The knowledge of how certain decisions impact both the income statement and the balance sheet can significantly change the decision. Often these core concepts are not shared with significant consequences that could have quiet easily have been prevented in the first place.

 

This might be a good time to introduce the "blind spot" which can be defined as knowledge know by some, but not by others.

 

The blind spot will always be there but how well we create an environment for common knowledge to manifest itself will be an important factor in reducing the blind spot risk.

 

 in order to do your common knowledge audit. Please consider how each of these business systems empower knowledge sharing.

•        Business strategy knowledge

•        Process knowledge

•        Information access capabilities

•        Policy knowledge

•        Measurement and expectation knowledge

•        Financial performance knowledge.

 

The greater the degree of common knowledge throughout the organization the more effective the business is in getting things done the right way.

Financial performance manager - myth or reality

Financial performance manager - myth or reality

 

Perception is often the reality. The CFO of yesterday was required to measure , report and control HOW WELL WE ARE DOING. The CFO of tomorrow is about HOW WELL WE CAN DO. Then problem is that many organizations manifest the yesterday culture even irrespective of how the incumbent CFO wants "to do things around here" 

 

The difference between how well we are doing and how well we can we can do can be described as the organizational performance gap. For the purposes of this discussion let call how well we can do as the organizational GROSS POTENTIAL. It would then be the job of the performance manger to identify the performance gap and move the business towards the gross potential.

 

We are now faced with the potential dilemma to create a methodology of defining the gross potential. One way that this could be done is by defining what are the required core competencies required to drive superior competitive capabilities.

 

These core competencies are or completive capabilities can be segmented based on the respective business model. In general examples of these core competencies could include.

• Customer core competencies that in turn would divided into customer growth capabilities and existing customer growth and management  capabilities.

• Value offer core capabilities represented by those capabilities to create superior value to the targeted customer. Once again the subdivision between existing value offers be they products or services or a combination of both and the development of new value offers.

• Channel core competencies reflecting those capabilities to develop and maintain effective access channels to serve the targeted customer

• Strategic relationship core competencies which enhance the capabilities to compete effectively

• Business process, technology  and policy capabilities
• Learning and growth core capabilities required to develop employees and the tools they use.

In the heart of these capabilities would be how they influence and impact financial performance.

 

Gross potential would thus be the sum of the what these capabilities should be. The performance gap would be the differential between the current state and the desired state.

 

The job of the performance manager becomes somewhat more systematic. She would target the those capabilities with the largest gap. 

 

Your job until we meet again is to identify your performance manager , empower him or her and attain a clear definition of your required core competitive capabilities.

The GFB service

For those entities that require a fully integrated performance management system. GFB engages with companies transforming financial management into the financial performance management discipline (FPD).

FPD is cultural it becomes the way that we do business, core competencies aligned with how that impacts our financial statements just makes sense

Doug Meyer-Cuno President Carolina Ingredients

 

Our process starts with the ability to quantify gross potential. The first target is to close the performance gap between the gross potential and current performance. Our finding are  that this is where immediate value is created.

The process is initiated using the financial statements as the “lagging indicator”. The performance workshop identifies the gross potential. Using the skills of the key functional executives the gross potential is translated into those core capabilities that are required to achieve the closure of the performance gap.

The accountably to these core competencies become the ownership of the of the performance team.

90 day Performance milestones are built linking the lagging indicator (financial statements) to the gross potential through the established core competencies that will deliver the result. This makes the process very measurable removing all the esoteric fluff.

At the end of the day if it can’t be measured in the financial statements then it does not relate to what we do at GFB.

 When is the GFB service value creative?

• Require all managers to be aligned with the why, then the what and lastly the how
• Need to have educated managers in how the income statement balance sheet and cash flow work together to create or destroy value
• What to sell your business...one day (inquire about our investor ready program)
• Want to create sustainable cash flow

• Want to migrate from financial management to financial performance management
• Want to have a business model that is simple, accountable and focused on the numbers.

 

Process

Step 1- Business Diagnostic

Step 2 -Performance Workshop

Step 3-Alignment program

Step 4- Accountability discipline

 

Investment

$2000 per month includes the GFB Financial statement analysis technology

 

Commitment

Minimum 6 months

 

Sales analysis methods for the distributor

Unit Price Audit

Consistent unit price auditing is critical to driving improved margins. Our ERP (accounting systems) systems will have a price that we would like our salespeople to adhere to. The reality is that often this price is overridden or changed.

Managing unit price fluctuations can have many benefits

1.    Are we selling the same product to the same customer or customer group at different prices? (yes I have seen that happen)

2.    Are we lowering prices to the right customers? I have witnessed small low volume customers with lower prices that the good A grade customers

3.    Which salespeople are capable or maintaining the right selling prices.

4.    Which customer groups or market segments are less price sensitive and are we growing in these segments or are we declining.

Unit price audit video

The audit steps are:

Step 1. Products by Period - Identify high volume products. Your sales analytics show all customers that have purchased this product

Step 2. Customers by period for the selected high volume product- Westgh SPC price

                                                                                                            
Step 3 – Select the selling price for this product for all customers

Sort best selling price to worst selling price. Observe the wide price range, certain customers are charged a prices far greater than others. you may be surprised that these high priced customers do not fall in the "D" category and yet some of the customers that should be charged higher prices are not.

 Step 4 – Sort worst selling price to best selling price …. Are these the right customers that should be receiving the best prices?

The sales analysis by product price shows all the customers that are attaining pricing preference. The check here is to determine if these are the right customers that should be receiving the lower price.

 

Step 5 – Define the market segments and how the prices vary between the market segments.

Can we grow the cooling segment?

 This is where good sales analysis capabilities can be most effective. The individual product is summarised into the various markets that it is sold into based on the average selling price attained within each market segment. If our goal is to optimize the price of a specific product the market segment analytics informs us where the best average unit selling price is achieved. The next step would be to identify the tactics that can allow the growth in that market segment.

 

 Unit selling price analysis is one of the many ways we can create good growth in the distribution business without actual price increases. That does not mean that price increases is not an appropriate strategy. We will be talking about where are the best opportunities to increase price.

You comments and experiences would be most appreciated.

 

How much cash would that sale require

Working Capital Per $ of Sales

Have you ever been in a situation where you need to know the cash impact of a new customer, or an additional product range from a new supplier, or for that matter how a bid would create cash.

Working capital per $ of revenue could be most helpful in these cases.

Step 1 Calculate your average working capital per $ of revenue (WC/$) (see example below)

Step 2 Multiply your revenue with the (WC/$), adjust for the time period if less than a year. = Total working capital retention at the end of the period

Step 3 = Take your gross profit contribution and deduct your working capital requirement this is the cash impact due to the transaction as at the end of the period.

Hope this helps

Working Capital per $ of revenue			20.55	(j) = (g/ixh)/a)*100
Working capital (adjusted for the revenue period divided by revenue x 100)
Sales/Revenue			3,000,000	(a)
COGS			2,500,000	(b)
Gross profit			500,000	(c )
Gross profit %			17%
					Days
Accounts receivable			600,000	(d)	36
Inventory			840,000	( e)	60
Accounts payable			190,000	(f)	14
Working Capital			1,250,000	(g)= (d+e-f)
Working Capital per $ sales			20.55
Days in period			180	(h)
Days in year			365	(i)
Per the above example
Revenue (sales)			3,000,000
Working Capital per $ revenue			20.55
Required working capital			1,250,000
Profit contribution			500,000
Cash required to fund first 180 days			750,000