IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS AS PART OF CFO ROLE
by Bertolt Gaetner CFO – TUD SUV
• Cut costs and increase productivity
• Define measures in order to increase profitability and implement these measures
• Align between corporate finance and operating units
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LEADING CHANGE TO MEET GROWTH EXPECTATIONS
By Steve Hulme International CFO – Capital One
Organisations recovering from downturn and progressing back to growth face unique challenges in identifying the best opportunities to go after and in resourcing to deliver on those opportunities where headcount and skills have been previously cut back.
Often pent up ideas or opportunities that were passed on can all come to the fore at the same time creating the need to be exceptionally disciplined in making choices and also for CFOs to rebuild or reskill their Finance team so that it is appropriately resourced to deliver. A wave of change can be destructive to strong processes and controls but is critical to the future success of the business and maintaining balance is key.
The session will address
• How CFO’s must play a leading role in both the evaluation and prioritisation of new initiatives and in ensuring the broader organisation is set up for success.
• The steps required to ensure that Finance is set up to meet the demands around growth whilst ensuring that cost discipline and strong control is maintained.
TALENT MANAGEMENT IN FINANCE
by Anne Frisch CFO – Publicis Worldwide
Great Finance teams are made with people that have the right skill set and are able to take finance out of its ivory tower to become true business partners.
During this workshop we will review the best practices that will enable you to :
• Assess the skills of your team and grow their talent
• Make finance simple and fun for every manager in your company
Key take aways
• Develop your teams and you will develop yourself
• Take finance out of its ivory tower, make it simple and fun, this is the best way to become a true business partner
VALUE CREATION BY INTEGRATING IN AN EFFECTIVE WAY NEWLY ACQUIRED COMPANIES
by Jan Christiaens CFO Corporate Investments – Philips
In today’s fast changing economic environment, organic growth is very often not sufficient to achieve the company goals and overall strategy. Many companies have as such developed an active acquisition strategy. Implementation of the plans to capture synergy value while maintaining the stand alone value of the acquired company, especially in emerging markets, is very challenging.
Definition and tailoring of the integration strategy and the overall plan, integration preparation, attention to culture and motivation, good execution and tracking are key enablers to ensure that the intended value is harvested.’`
Key take aways are :
• How to generate value out of acquisitions
• How best to put integration strategy into action : from strategy to implementation
• Best practices and key learnings from Philips Electronics
HOW A COMPANY CAN PREPARE FOR A FULL OR PARTIAL BREAKUP OF THE EURO
by Peter Davidsson European Treasury Director – Whirlpool
The Euro crisis continues and the focus is shifting from one country to an other. First was it Greece but now more and more is the attention moving towards other countries like Spain and Portugal. Multinational companies are exposed to enormous risks if the euro breaks up and need to prepare for different scenarios. In this speech gives whirlpool’s European Treasury his view on how to look at these risks, what scenarios and assumptions to use, and what actions a company can take to mitigate the risk. He also looks at lessons learned from other earlier similar type of events like the Argentinian crisis.
GROWING FUTURE LEADERS
by Wim Van Der Smissen VP Finance – Bemis
Over the past 15 years the role of Finance Leaders has changed dramatically : they are no longer just stewards of assets and accounting and reporting specialists, but compliance requirements have grown significantly and they are being requested to assist in strategy setting and to manage third party providers that have taken over parts of the work they used to perform themselves. Against this background, what does it take to be a good finance leader? And how do we make sure the future finance leaders are well prepared for their tasks ? Key take outs :
- The current and future role of finance leaders requires a new, broader and different skill set than was historically required
- Developing this skill set can not be left to change, but requires new and different approaches to talent and career development
SHARED SERVICE STRATEGY. RUNNING GLOBAL AND REGIONAL CENTRES
by Marcus Kuhnert CFO Laundry and Homecare – Henkel
Extended use of Shared Services is a key pillar of Henkel’s new mid-term strategy. Offshoring enables simplified, best-in-class processes, promotes cost efficiency and thus contributes to Henkel’s 2016 financial targets.
By 2016, Henkel’s aspiration is to have more than 3,000 FTE working in Shared Service Centers (SSCs), thus more than doubling the current number. Until 2011, offshoring of transactional processes was already in focus at Henkel and is well-advanced by now. The first step was to offshore personnel-intensive standard processes within Henkel’s Corporate Functions – Finance (e.g. Order-to-Cash), Purchasing (e.g. Purchase-to-Pay) and IT (e.g. IT Support).
Since 2012, the focus has been shifting to Henkel’s Business Units and to more sophisticated processes – including ad-hoc activities, activities closer to the customer/consumer interface and those with more differentiated language requirements. Examples for the extended scope include Customer Service, Supply Chain Planning, and Controlling. Within Controlling, for instance, all Servicing tasks of the Laundry & Home Care division (~ 35% of total FTE) are currently being moved to SSCs: the focus is on Reporting & Analytics and on a variety of administrative support tasks.
Going forward, the scope will further extend to more sophisticated activities (e.g. in-depth margin analyses) which will be a key driver of future SSC growth. Key take outs
When considering Shared Services, think big, move fast and don’t offshore your ‘trash’ – employees in Shared Service Centers are full team members working from another location.
When implementing Shared Services, dedicate enough resources to hiring and training in the SSC, but also to communication and change management topics ‘at home’.
THE FINANCE TRANSFORMATION AT SAP
by Frederic Arrouays CFO Emerging Markets SAP
SAP embarked on a major Strategy reshuffle in 2010 with a clear set of ambitious objectives at the 2015 horizon, including doubling revenue and reaching best in class operating margin. Mid-way, SAP is today the biggest market cap in Germany and 63% of the world’s transaction revenue touches a SAP system.
How could Finance help SAP to reach its 2015 objectives? By setting up a far-reaching program called “Finance Run Better Together” aiming at re-inventing the Finance function around key themes: Customer Centricity, Operational Excellence and People.
From process-driven to value-driven, from people-networked to process based, the journey is also heavily reliant on leading the way in adopting cutting-edge technology. Mobility, cloud, big data, in-memory computing, how can Finance leverage those major innovation trends to be successful in our New Reality? And how can SAP drink its own Champagne?
Key takeouts:
Learn about the transformation of a large and complex finance organisation to support a new ambitious corporate strategy
How can Finance leverage key technology innovations – mobile, cloud, big data, in-memory computing?
FINANCING THE LONDON OLYMPIC GAMES
By Jamie Magraw Director of Financial Operations – LOCOG
An overview of the recent highly successful London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics from the perspective of LOCOG – the organisation created to plan, deliver both the infrastructure required for the Games and the day to day management of the event.
Ultimately LOCOG was able to deliver the first and third largest sporting events over a 6 week period.
LOCOG managed a £3 billion budget (£2 billion of private funds and £1 billion scope and budget transfer from Government) and influenced the £9.3 billion public sector budget.
Government has announced that the public sector will have delivered approximately £500million under budget whilst it is anticipated that LOCOG will be on budget (subject to conclusion of a small number of litigation matters).
Although LOCOG had 7,000 employees at Games Time the majority of the delivery was from the contractor base. LOCOG engaged approximately 700 significant suppliers across a wide range of goods and services. Activity and spend mainly occurred in a four month period. Many of the requirements placed upon the supplier base were industry sector changing due to size or intensity. Change control and contract management was vital in delivering to budget. Two key take outs
An Olympics can be delivered to budget as with all complex projects.
Critical is the delivery of tight contract management where Finance need to play a significant part.
‘THE CFO AS STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNER’
by Germon Knoop CFO – Irdeto
The traditional finance teams spend most of their time analyzing historical (financial) data focused on external shareholders like tax and regulatory bodies. However the added value of a finance team should be coming from forward looking analysis, involvement in the strategic planning process, supporting strategic and commercial deals, and understanding the in- and external risks around the company.
A good measurement of how well a company is managed is their ability to forecast results and mitigate risks timely and effectively. Finance can play a pivotal role by implementing an integrated forecasting structure, anticipating deviations on planned performance and reporting these into the business owners. The next and important question is then how do you transform a traditional finance team into a strategic business partner? What capabilities, systems, structures and support is needed to facilitate this? How would you do this in a global company with teams in various locations, time zones and with different business cultures?
What KPI’s should measure this and how do you reflect this in compensation systems for the teams? The workshop will address this in more detail and experiences will be shared on how to effectively transform a traditional finance team into a true business partner
Key ‘take- aways’ from the workshop:
• Understanding of the benefits of the CFO team as strategic business partner
• Guidance in how to transform a finance team into a business partner
“THROWING LIGHT ON THE FUTURE: MEGA TRENDS THAT WILL SHAPE THE WORLD”
by Dorman Followwill EIA Director & Partner – Frost & Sullivan
Dorman Followwill examines the most pertinent global forces that can impact businesses, personal lives, and the next-generation business models for success.
Mega Trends have different meanings and impacts for different industries, companies and individuals. A thorough analysis of these Mega Trends and their implications is a vital component of a company’s future strategy, development and innovation process, and impacts product and technology planning.
MANAGING THE FUTURE TALENT PIPELINE AFTER A SHARED SERVICES IMPLEMENTATION
by Michael Van Der Ploeg CFO EMEA – Amway
The talent training ground has shifted when services get centralized. How do you organize the future finance talent pipeline in that new reality? Many companies think of shared services as shifting transactions to a central location which brings many benefits. However do we also know how to create a future talent pipeline as the role of finance in the retained organization has changed, and the training ground of the transactions environment is completely new.
What it means for your retained local finance and shared service environments may vary between an in-house center or outsourced center, but the overarching topic remains the same.
Amway Europe has implemented an in-house shared service center in Krakow, Poland for 25 countries in Europe in 2010/2011. Michael van der Ploeg joined Amway in 2010 and previously worked for United Biscuits that implemented an outsourced shared service center. He will share his ideas and specific actions to create a future pipeline for talent across the organization, followed by an interactive debate to share learnings and experiences.
OUTSOURCE, INHOUSE OR DO NOTHING?
Chair
Dorman Followwill EIA Director & Partner – Frost & Sullivan
Panel
Thomas Ulmer Head of Financial Planning & Resource Allocation – Merck
Oliver Taudien CFO EMEA – International Paper
Sara Heur VP Finance Global Service Delivery & Contracts – EMI
“BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN BUSINESS APPLICATIONS AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE”
by Tim Hood Perceptive Software
All organisations want to drive better financial performance and improve operational efficiencies, but also want to get a handle on unseen risks in the organisation and continue to grow their business by being ready for whatever the future holds.
However, a recent survey of business process professionals carried out by Forester found that seventy nine percent of those who responded said that the inflexibility of existing enterprise systems was their biggest challenge.
This workshop will discuss how organisations can manage all of their processes and content within a unified view to improve financial performance, eliminate risk and provde the flexibility to adapt for future growth.
CFO World Financial Times
