Running a tighter, smarter finance operation

This is one of nine insights in our guide to navigating your first 100 days as a new CFO. Discover more insights here.

In your early months as a new CFO, you’ll need to assess the strength of current operations and identify any opportunities for increased efficiency and effectiveness to add value to the business.

Forecasting, budgeting, and planning systems

From the start, you will be expected to be on top of cash. Understanding cash positions through forecasting will allow you to identify and seize opportunities, drive better-informed strategic decisions, and enhance liquidity risk management and controls.  
 
The value of cash-flow forecasting will be crucial if your company is forced to quickly secure liquidity in response to an unexpected event or is looking to free up cash to fund strategy.  

Four questions to ask early on in your role are: 

1. Are your assumptions clear, consistent and current?  

Having clearly defined assumptions will ensure that all stakeholders understand the basis for the budget or forecast and can make informed decisions. Failure to do so can lead to confusion, misinterpretation, and ineffective decision-making.  

2. Do you understand your performance drivers?  

The more you understand what drives revenue and cost in your business, the more you can zoom in on driving growth and finding efficiencies.    

3. How confident are you on data quality?

It’s no surprise that access to rich, reliable data improves the quality of budgets and forecasts. Yet 'data‑related challenges' consistently appears as a top‑three issue in our biannual survey of 500 CFOs. If the data feeding your processes is incomplete, inconsistent or poorly governed, nothing else will work as it should.

4. Is your software robust enough to build an accurate forecast? 

There’s an increasing expectation that forecasts will be accompanied by several scenarios and sensitivities. While Microsoft Excel can still manage that, we’re seeing wider use of other tools to build more sophistication into forecasting.  
 
Do you have a tool in place with an appropriate level of sophistication and usability – whether it be Microsoft Excel or not – that’s enabling a quick turnaround time for your forecasts?

5. Is budget communication continuous, not seasonal? 

While budgeting season usually brings a lot of communication between departments, it  
should be an ongoing priority. Otherwise, small changes that aren’t communicated can lead teams to quickly diverge from budgets.  
 
Establishing the importance of cross-departmental communication early will help you to maintain good-quality forecasts year-round.

Supply chain management  

Today’s CFO is deeply embedded in supply chain management. This means identifying resilience gaps and cost-saving opportunities, as well as providing strategic input on ESG priorities and shaping investments that will build supply-chain resilience in the long term. 

Two areas to include in your first 100 days checklist are:

1. Identifying supply-chain risks early

Meet with the relevant stakeholders, such as department heads in procurement, logistics,  
planning and production to develop improvement opportunities and provide challenge for the most likely and potentially damaging risks, and what is being done to manage them and improve resilience.    

2. Strengthening supplier relationships  

Much of effective supply chain management comes down to building strong relationships with key suppliers. Building a strong line of communication early on will ensure you’re kept up to date and informed, putting you in a strong position to react swiftly to change and business challenges.  

By providing financial expertise and strategic guidance, you can play a vital role in driving profitability and improving cash flow through a well-managed supply chain.

Next Up: Automate, accelerate, protect

As a new CFO, your advantage lies in how fast you can deploy automation, leverage AI, and strengthen cyber resilience. These capabilities streamline operations and reshape the speed and security of the entire business.