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The face of The Modern Finance Director (FD) is changing rapidly. Successful FD’s now play an ever increasing role in not just accountancy functions but also the senior leadership team, proactively supporting business growth and the development of a long-term vision, traditionally more solely the preserve of the Managing Director. In 2013 the modern FD and an increasing amount of Financial Controllers too, have seen their roles become more challenging due to an ever increasing global reach with a greater pressure to deliver higher quality management information. Finance is now very much about becoming a key business partner for the organisation and making sense of the systems and processes to help drive profitability and generate cash.

In an entrepreneurial business The Modern Finance Director needs to help the business owner to understand what to do and where to go in order to generate cash from within the business and possibly outside. “They need to play a crucial role in the leadership team, supporting key decision makers to understand what’s likely to make the best profits and what products or services will help to improve cash flow,” suggests Big Sky Additions’ Director Sam Holt. As part of this role, a modern FD also needs a critical understanding of which customers are likely to pay on time.

A modern Finance Directors role may also look different in terms of their own employment basis. “Increasing numbers of ambitious, growing businesses are looking for a FD to work on a part time basis or perhaps in a self employed consultancy role to give added flexibility,” explains Sam. “In this way, a smaller business is able to tap into a high level of (expensive) expertise at a lower overall cost than a full time employee,” he continues. This idea can also help to redress the gender imbalance at board level since a part time or freelance role is often more appealing to working mothers looking to achieve better work-life balance.

As a business owner or entrepreneur entering the market to recruit a new FD, it is important that you find someone you can get along with: “It is likely that you will spend a lot of time together and go through some challenging times so it really helps if everyone gets along well and understands each other,” adds Sam.

When reviewing candidates for a FD position, Sam offers the following tips:

1. It goes without saying that you must make sure they have the appropriate qualifications.
2. Look for candidates who have been there and done it at least once
3. You may want to shortlist individuals who have specific experience or an interest in your industry sector.
4. High quality candidates will bring with them a network of contacts and existing relationships with key suppliers that can be relied upon by the business – cross reference these to the business needs.
5. If there are known specific issues pre-existing in the business then it is really valuable to choose candidates with specific experience of overcoming such scenarios.
6. A top candidate should have more than just job skills – they need to be able to demonstrate business skills and an aptitude for strategic thinking too alongside appropriate inter personal strengths

For further information and support to recruit for any financial or accountancy positions in your business please call Sam on 01603 516254

Four reasons summer is the perfect time to start saving energy.

• Warmer weather.Have your heating and ventilation system serviced while you’re not using it and make sure your system will be running as efficiently as possible through the winter. The more efficient the heating and ventilation system is, the more money you should save.
• Longer days.More daylight means your lighting costs are lower. Invest the money you save on new energy efficient light fittings. Get a lighting assessment from an accredited energy surveyor to ensure you get a good payback period. Any NICEIC registered electrical contractor qualified to 17th Edition BS7671 should be able to advise you.
• You can retrofit after hours.Business downtime is unaffordable in the current economic climate. It’s hard to take a break – not even for energy efficiency upgrades. That means retrofitting out of trading hours. Retrofitting out of hours can run expensive in the winter, as artificial lighting and heating must be provided in order to complete complex projects. Fortunately, extra daylight in summer means businesses can retrofit cheaply as well as safely. However expensive summer projects look, you can bet they’re cheaper than their winter equivalents.
• It’s a chance to develop long-term energy strategies.Energy prices are going to continue creeping up, so energy efficiency should be a priority for your business. It’s easy to view things like air conditioning inspections and EPC assessments as unnecessary red tape, but they can form the basis of your energy management strategy and help your business make savings no matter how much the energy market fluctuates.

Imagine, if you will, that you are about to go shopping and on your shopping list is something for breakfast. You arrive at the supermarket and find that in the huge retail space, the only product available is cereal. There are hundreds of different types of cereals all over the store but effectively your choice is cereal or nothing from this store.

How do you choose?

Well, assuming you like cereal, you might choose from a number of different standpoints;

• What catches your eye
• The nearest option
• The biggest box, or the smallest
• The one that looks to be good value
• The one that you have seen some sort of promotion for
• The one that other people have recommended to you
• The one that you’ve never heard of but looks interesting

And many others.

How you make your decision can be influenced by hundreds of inputs that the cereal manufacturer has made into your life or other inputs that you have received from a wide range of sources.

This analogy can be readily applied to events and exhibitions. Just as our hypothetical supermarket only sells cereals so the exhibition that you go to, say to find a particular business expertise, will potentially offer and wide range of companies offering the same or similar services – how do you choose? Again the above choice influencers may come into play.

Now look at this from the other side – you are that cereal manufacturer or business service supplier, how do you stand out?

• Do you know why your customers come to you and can you show this on your stand?
• What is THEIR perception of your company – how would THEY describe you?
• Do your promotional strategies support this perception?
• What was it that helped your customer make their FIRST leap of faith to work with you?
• Why do they continue to work with you?

Knowing the above will help you greatly in most aspects of your promotion but, on top of these, exhibitions can be fickle. There are some basics to be observed.

• Are you in the right location?
• Is your stand clean and attractive?
• Does your stand have some form of stimulus to help the visitor formulate a query or even catch their eye (more on this later)?
• Do the people on your stand look attractive?
• Do you have something unique about your service that you can promote?

All big asks for many companies and while most people can put ticks against many of these factors, getting all of them is difficult.

The first couple of aspects of being seen involves a bit of planning. Have a look at the exhibition layout when choosing your stand. Imagine the sight lines across the show with plenty of interrupting clutter around others’ stands and how visible your stand will be to those just entering the show. If you go back to the supermarket example you’ll probably be aware of electronic gates as you enter the supermarket. Set inside the main doors. This area between the doors and the gates is the deceleration zone – designed to get you out of the hurly burly of the outside world and force you to slow down and be able to consider the offers within the store by not walking at pavement speed. Many stores use this open space at the front of their stores to do this. Exhibitions also have this space, sometimes coupled with a plan of the exhibition to help visitors. The question is, can your stand be seen while people are considering their options or when they are rushing by? How are you going to slow them down or catch their eye? As far as attractive is concerned, this is a very subjective issue. The stand that looks formal may only attract formal type customers. Equally, the fun stand that looks like a real party is going on may be highly reflective of the service but may not be the ideal “look” for the buyer of that service.

At an exhibition, a delicate balancing act has to be achieved between presenting your company as the ideal supplier of a solution as well as being a comfortable space for the buyer of that service to enter. Be aware of proximity, too. I’ve seen all sorts of stand that scream “come and look at me!” from across an exhibition hall but when standing near them, the gizmos used to get me across the hall also serve to make me want to get away from the stand when I’m next to it. Again, balance is required. Working on your clients’ perceptions, design the stand that they would not only find easily but also want to be part of.

Next, help the visitor. If they’ve stopped by your stand (on purpose) then they want to find out about you just as much as you want to find out about them. Give them some clues in the form of physical pieces for them to ask about on your stand (perhaps an example of your product or an award received) or, if your business is about words, tell them on banners using both words and images so that they can connect. You have probably seen this a lot already with posters like “ask us about xxx”, “find out more about xxx”. This stimulus, simple as it is, works because the question is already placed in the visitor’s mind. Also, if your business is about something that lends itself to a good visual, make sure that your visitor can see the visual. Remember, large exhibitions attract potential customers from all over the world. The big sign in English that says what you do may mean nothing to someone from the Far East but a picture gets across the message straightaway.

So, what about the people on your stand. I’m not talking about having supermodels on your stand (unless you are perhaps in that industry) but are the people there appropriate to what the visitor’s perception is of what they might encounter? Have your staff been briefed on why you are there and what they are likely to encounter. Have you been through a few potential role playing situations with them about different kinds of customer and different needs that you might expect. How are they going to handle them? Do your staff look like they might be able to help customers? Do they look experienced/fun/serious/technical/energetic and is this congruent with the customer’s likely needs? Most of all, do they look approachable? I can remember seeing one company, many years ago that I was interested in but there was only one person on the stand and he was standing, with his arms crossed on the edge of the stand (which had a plinth, thus making him tower over the visitors). Believe me, he looked about as approachable as a bouncer at a nightclub so I moved on and placed business elsewhere. Equally, obsequiousness has had me cringing at exhibitions so it is important to get the tone and balance of your welcome just right and talking to your existing clients will help you – and doesn’t cost anything.

The final aspect of your stand is to try to visually differentiate your service from the others. Many use facts and figures to do this: best, fastest, biggest, smallest, most environmental, etc. Some use various phrases such as “Award-Winning” or direct the visitor to their particular skill set, “suppliers to the big four banks/accountants/software companies, etc” or “specialist in charity or local authority solutions”. Whichever skill sets you have, make sure that these are highlighted but also make sure that they are not excluding other skills you might have. Also, use the language of your visitor, not your own. Whether it be managed or maintenance solutions or facilities management, make sure, through talking to your clients, that the language you use is that of your customer or prospect, not necessarily how you refer to it internally. The difference is that they will get it instantly rather than you having to explain each time to every visitor.

In summary, imagine that you’re the supplier that has managed to sneak in bacon into our hypothetical cereal supermarket above and design your offering accordingly.

One (of many) issues that many family businesses face is that the strategy of the business has often been set by the older generation or was set in a previous generation. The result of this can be a general lack of buy in by senior management, missed opportunities for the business and a general drop in energies to drive the business forward.

So how do you ensure that the business has focus and buy in? The key is to create and maintain passion, enthusiasm and belief.

How is this achieved? By making sure that the business has clearly defined objectives and that if those objectives are met then all the owners/key people’s own objectives will also be met. All too often people become controlled by their business, blindly following what was done before. They only spend time working in their business and never any time on their business. The best way to maintain passion, enthusiasm and belief is to ensure your business is fulfilling both your personal and business aspirations, and that includes all the family members regardless of age.

Businesses that grow successfully recognise that they do need to change and evolve. They take time out to ensure that they are moving in the direction that they want to go in, not missing out on any opportunities that may arise. Success is a process not a one off event, it is a journey, and you need to regularly review and check the route you are taking. To be successful you must have belief and you must know what it is you are striving for, only then will you be able to generate commitment, passion, energy and the drive to see the vision through.

Strategic planning for family businesses is just as important as it is for owner managed businesses and is the key to success and fulfilment.

The three key questions: Where are you now? Where do you want to go? And how are you going to get there?

Too often there is either no planning or insufficient planning, or a plan without a call for action. These businesses go off in different directions resulting in higher costs; frustration and taking longer to get to where they want to go, if indeed they ever get there. All businesses need the leadership that drives strategic thinking.

What is leadership? In order of priority and importance but not time commitment:

1. Strategic – A small amount of time, but essential 2. Management – Quality management time not administration 3. Operational – Important as long as the above are not neglected

Give your business the leadership passion and energy it deserves.

‘Sweaty’ Assets

Within the current economic climate many owners of perfectly viable businesses are finding financial support from their bank and other core lenders increasingly challenging to secure.

The latest quarterly ‘Trends in Lending’ report published in Julyl by the Bank of England evidences a continued contraction in lending to UK businesses, and despite protestations to the contrary, the banks have become increasingly introspective post 2008 as recommendations from the final Vickers report (09/2011) on banking are implemented, and Basel III stretches the parameters of global banking legislation.

The resulting capital constraints many of the UK banks find themselves working under, exacerbated by reduced security values, especially in property, has ultimately resulted in restricted appetite for traditional core lending support to business customers while attracting ‘niche’ independent lenders into the business finance sector.

Many business sectors rely on a high capital asset base of tangible medium to long life business assets and while these ‘working’ assets produce core income they are often overlooked in considering their secondary value in generating additional cash for the business.

Known as ‘sweating assets’, re-finance can be a valuable tool in generating cash against existing property, plant, machinery, equipment and vehicles where alternative core funding is unavailable.

Unlocking this cash can assist with new development projects, growth or investment capital, acquisitions, working capital shortfall, re-structure of existing debt to reduce monthly debt burden, improved cash-flow, and repayment of bank debt

Asset re-finance lenders seek to understand the ‘stress’ (forced-sale) value of the subject business assets with a view to lending on a simple ‘asset lend’ basis with security against the lending specific to those assets.

Because the banks rarely take account of the working assets within a business when assessing their security position against existing and additional lending, re-finance has little or no impact on the bank’s risk position and can often be used to reduce unwanted bank exposure especially where overdraft is concerned.

While higher interest rates reflect the perceived risk to the limited number of sector lenders, where the business rationale for borrowing is robust, then pricing will be superseded by the value the cash will bring to achieve the specific business objective.

Delivery of funding through asset re-finance can generally be delivered in days rather than weeks or months with funding periods generally up to 5 years but be warned that the (unsupported) guarantees of the business owners or Directors will almost certainly be a prerequisite.

Naturally business owners will always contact their local bank Relationship Manager and other traditional financial partners for support, however where these business partners appear increasingly unable or unwilling to support many businesses owners may consider their very own untapped asset wealth to ‘self fund’.