The role of the CFO is evolving. 79% of the 1,300+ senior finance professionals interviewed in Accenture’s most recent survey said that COVID-19 put more pressure on CFOs to expand their roles within their enterprises.
But what is the CFO position evolving into? Accenture says today’s CFOs must not only safeguard financial growth, but also identify value and contribute to that growth. In other words, CFOs can’t simply control finances anymore; they have to leverage their understanding of those finances to execute enterprise-wide value-building strategies.
Most CFOs have the knowhow to grow into this evolving role well… but many don’t have the time. The problem, especially in private equity, is many CFOs are struggling just to keep up with their current workload. Instead of launching new value-building initiatives, their time is being spent on all the “busywork” that goes into their reporting, forecasting and analysis.
The CFO’s Future: Solving the Speed Problem
The answer to the modern CFO’s problem? Start using emerging digital tools effectively. Highly successful contemporary CFOs find and generate new value via cloud-based and machine learning technologies that automate their traditional “busywork” tasks. This tech-facilitated automation gives them the time and data to get in front of their budget cycles, dig deep into their enterprises, uncover new opportunities, and continually drive new value.
At EBM Software, we’ve seen this happen firsthand, again and again. A recent engagement with our clients at Louisiana Fish Fry is a perfect example.
The Louisiana Fish Fry Solution: Speed to Value
When CFO Gary Galeziewkski started at Louisiana Fish Fry he inherited a bit of a mess. Attempting to standardize and reconcile the company’s disorganized data was taking almost all of his team’s time. Eager to get that time back, Gary turned to our EBM Catalyst FP&A Software. Gary found immediate success with Catalyst and has been more than willing to share his story with other CFOs.
Recently, we had Gary join us for an exclusive Webinar entitled “Speed to Value with EBM Catalyst.” He shared his first-hand experience and provided key CFO insights on our FP&A software. Then we showed an exclusive hands-on demo for viewers, showcasing the features Gary highlights. Together, we showed exactly how Louisiana Fish Fry was able to use Catalyst to start driving the kind of value their team never had time to uncover previously, almost instantly.
Among the topics covered, Gary talked about how he was able to achieve high speed-to-value with Catalyst in three important ways:
1. Speed of Implementation
At first, Gary was worried Catalyst would be too much work to introduce into an existing system. “I’ve had to implement a new ERP system,” he explains, “I never want to do that again. Luckily, implementing Catalyst was nothing like that.”
Instead, Louisiana Fish Fry’s implementation of the Cloud-based Catalyst FP&A Software, EBM Catalyst, was quick, easy and non-disruptive. “They hit every curve ball we threw at them – everything from management adjustments that didn’t reside in our ERP to historical pre-acquisition financial reports – they were able to fit it all into our Catalyst setup no problem,” he recalls.
With the help of EBM’s implementation team, Louisiana Fish Fry was able to implement Catalyst quickly without interrupting or slowing down their operation: “The pacing of implementation was excellent,” Gary says, “My whole team really appreciated the pace that they took us through.”
2. Automation of Busywork
Gary quickly hooked Catalyst into their monthly reporting structure, creating an automated process that almost immediately saved his financial team days. “Catalyst let me build our entire financial package,” he says.
Automating reporting allows Gary and his team to skip the laborious process of gathering and verifying data and, instead, skip right to analyzing that data.
With the benefit of more time and deeper insight, Gary has been able to launch key value-building initiatives. “It gives me the time and resources to queue up a ton of projects on the finance side,” he explains.
3. The Value is Always Growing
Most importantly, the value Gary’s team has realized with Catalyst only continues to grow. The longer Louisiana Fish Fry uses Catalyst, the more data they’ll be able to analyze – and the faster they’ll be able to identify additional value. “We’ve only scratched the surface of what Catalyst can do,” Gary says, “there’s a lot more I’m excited to use it for.”
Gary Galeziewkski believes Catalyst’s impressive speed to value represents the solution to the time crunch modern private equity CFOs face. “It’s so flexible to just tie in, it makes whatever software the company is using almost irrelevant,” he explains. “You can use it for any accounting or ERP system. You don’t have to master a new piece of software in a when you take a new CFO role; you just skip right to the impactful stuff.”
Want to dig further into Louisiana Fish Fry’s success story? Interested in finding out exactly how Catalyst helped him achieve value so quickly? Fill out the form below for instant access to a replay of this webinar.