A typical company finance function can be divided up into 3 areas, however many businesses believe the finance role is principally to produce accurate accounts. Ask any bank manager and he or she will tell you the bank’s most problematic customers are those who don’t truly understand what is going on in their business. Some customers ask for finance or expect to maintain an overdraft, yet cannot even produce up to date accounts. Most SME business owners want to focus on the business and not the numbers. The business is their baby and they want it to be their sole focus – not financials! The ar ..read more

Jim Collins, the veteran author of Good to Great, believes that “10x companies” – i.e. those which outperform their industry average by 10 times or more – possess 3 fundamental and distinctive traits: 1. Fanatic discipline and monomaniacal focus on achieving goals. 2. Empirical creativity: an obsession with facts over opinion and a readiness to ignore conventional wisdom once armed with these facts. 3. Productive paranoia:  constant worry which fuels relentless preparation and precautions against even the most improbably bad events. To illustrate 10Xers at work, C ..read more

One of the toughest challenges for owners of SMEs is to be able to stand back, to look at their business through a wide-angle lens and identify what it is they really have. Because quite often, the day-to-day distractions and diversions that inevitably surround the running of a successful business – particularly when there’s a global pandemic pulling the rug from under everyone’s feet – get in the way of sensible, objective evaluation and strategic decision-making. Crucially, that can mean that really important opportunities to grow and develop go at best un-exploited and at worst, un-noticed ..read more

While much uncertainty still remains after the craziness of 2020, our Chairman Colin Mills talks about his process on how to significantly grow your business. “The best advice I ever received for ‘doubling’ the size of our business, was to list down the Top 20 things we could do to increase the revenue by 10 times. You can then identify the Top 3 activities to concentrate on for the following year” says Colin. So let’s say you’re a $4million business. Spend a few hours listing out the 20 things you could do to turn this into a $40million business over the next 12 months. This wi ..read more

Client Profile Fiera Private Debt, a subsidiary of Fiera Capital Corporation, is a leading pan-Canadian private debt firm. It specializes in providing financing to developers, property owners, and mid-market businesses, as well as securing corporate and infrastructure debt financing. Headquartered in Laval, Quebec, with offices in Montreal and Toronto, Fiera is renowned for its highly disciplined, credit-driven approach to investments that creates significant returns for their investors through collaborative, proactive financial strategies. The Client’s NeedWhen Dino Fracassi, Managing Directo ..read more

Client Profile Located in Port Elgin, Ontario, Walker Homes Ltd. specializes in constructing beautiful new homes that stand the test of time. Co-owners Ryan and Brooke Walker carry on three generations of family homebuilding tradition, helping to develop thriving communities with each new build. Walker Homes goes the extra mile for its customers by guiding them through each step of the home-buying process, all the way to closing day. Your family can then enjoy the 9-foot ceilings, Napoleon Gas fireplaces, luxurious Canadian-made kitchen cabinetry, and brick exteriors that come standard with ea ..read more

Thriving in the New World requires a CFO to expand their Guardian role for the organization.  The CFO must see themselves driving the organization’s efforts to harness increasing levels of complexity while embedding behaviours and systems to defend against existing and emerging threats to business continuity. Organizations of all sizes have relied on their financial leaders to develop internal control systems and financial compliance with taxation and regulatory bodies.  The business owner and key stakeholders will better navigate the future by ensuring their financial leader is acco ..read more

In this series of Thriving in the New World, The CFO Centre explores what exactly it means to be an operator in the “new world” and essential elements that allow your business to thrive. Most owner-operated businesses would agree that increased cash and more access to capital would help them exceed their business objectives.   Recent societal and economic realities have strained or even exhausted cash resources for many companies.   Even those companies enjoying unprecedented growth are scrambling to fund unexpected expansion.   The essential building block for li ..read more

In the introduction to our CFO Contribution Series, Thriving In the New World Strategist, we suggested that most business owners may not be well served by high-level, third party driven, divergent strategic exercises. Certainly, there is significant value in undertaking far reaching, blue sky thinking. Most small to medium size organizations will be better served by incorporating their own foresight into targeted, most probable future scenarios developed by highly engaged participants directly linked to the success of the business. There can be no doubt the Covid 19 pandemic has led to unprece ..read more

A typical company finance function can be divided up into 3 areas, however many businesses believe the finance role is principally to produce accurate accounts. Ask any bank manager and he or she will tell you the bank’s most problematic customers are those who don’t truly understand what is going on in their business. Some customers ask for finance or expect to maintain an overdraft, yet cannot even produce up to date accounts. Most SME business owners want to focus on the business and not the numbers. The business is their baby and they want it to be their sole focus – not financials! The ar ..read more