CFO Leadership

On an evening in November 2010 when Rishi Grover sat down at his local watering hole, he was just looking to unwind a little after a hectic couple of months.  He’d just moved back to Toronto, the pressure at work was mounting and his company, Clarity Systems, had recently been acquired by IBM. Clarity was an FP&A software tool and Rishi was an up-and-coming solutions consultant, which means he spent long days running demos and getting finance leaders excited about the product.  But even as he sipped his cocktail and relaxed into his chair, Rishi couldn’t help thinking about a challenge even a merger with IBM wouldn’t fix. No matter how hard he worked or how tailored he was with each demo, there was one major objection he always seemed to run into—and that was his clients’ reluctance to give up their Excel spreadsheets. “I’d spent a lot of time learning how businesses really used Excel. The pain points with manual processes and data consolidation were common denominators,” says Rishi. “Clarity was your traditional ‘replace Excel’ kind of finance product, but the implementations were long and users had to learn a whole new language. We found that even after our customers rolled out Clarity, they were still doing a lot of their budgeting and planning work in Excel. That made it a bit harder to convince people to adopt the software and to sell existing clients on using Clarity for other spreadsheet-heavy tasks.”  George Papayiannis—a childhood pal of Rishi’s who also worked at IBM as a software developer—had heard his friend lament over this on plenty of occasions already. So when he joined Rishi at the bar that night to catch up and swap some war stories, they started thinking of ways they could just solve this problem themselves.   “Customers wanted Clarity to act more like a spreadsheet, but there was no escaping the fact that Clarity just wasn’t a spreadsheet,” says George, who’s always been an entrepreneur at heart. “So we said, ‘Why don’t we build a product that leverages native Excel, but gives you all the enterprise controls and functionality you could ever want?’” The two friends mulled it over, curious how their idea would evolve. Rishi knew there was a market for this and George was confident he could build it, so both men quit their jobs to pursue the idea full time. They didn’t have a name for their concept yet and they hadn’t written a single line of code—but Rishi and George knew they were sitting on something special. “We started doing some cold calls and described the idea to see if there was interest,” says Rishi. “When a VP of Finance picked up and said she’d never get rid of her spreadsheets, that’s when it really hit me that we could actually make this thing real. ” Spring - Fall 2011: Vena Comes To Life  Rishi and George incorporated Vena Solutions Limited and officially launched the business in April 2011. They chose the name Vena, which is the Latin word for vein, to signify the interconnectedness and streamlined data flow the software delivers. “We liked the comparison between the flow of data in business and the flow of blood in humans. Both are so critical, but they’re things we often take for granted,” says George. “The name Vena stood out for us because it felt warm, but also assertive. Simple, but with a greater meaning. And when we tied it back to Excel with the green logo and branding, it became really clear to us that this was a powerful name for our company.” Meanwhile, back at the IBM office, sales VP Don Mal could tell something interesting was going on. It didn’t quite make sense to him to hear that Rishi—his most promising Clarity solutions consultant by far—had left the firm out of nowhere without telling him his plans for the future.  “Rishi was a very smart up-and-comer. His time as a solutions consultant had shown me just how capable he was with product and technology,” says Don. “So when he told me that he was leaving, I knew he was going to do something big. I told him, ‘I know you’re up to something, Rishi, so call me when you’re ready to talk about it’—and he did.”   George, Rishi and Don met at a coffee shop in North York later that summer. This, it turns out, would be Vena’s first official founder’s meeting. It was there the three men decided to form an equal partnership—Don would lead the sales team and serve as CEO, Rishi would run solutions as Chief Solutions Architect and George would oversee software development as Chief Technology Officer. Like all successful startups, the collaborative dynamic between founders was crucial—because all three individuals brought something totally different to the table. “Don was this legendary sales guy at IBM. We felt it was really important to get him involved as a founder because he knew right away what an amazing pitch this could be,” says Rishi. “George and I had never actually closed any software deals ourselves, so Don’s influence was huge for us there. And as George was doing the coding, I was working on the pitch, the demo, the PowerPoint slides and the website. If it weren’t for all three of us and the unique roles we played, it would’ve been a lot harder for us to close those early opportunities.” Winter 2011 - Summer 2014: Finding Success in the Market and Redefining the Product In December 2011, following a summer without any sales, Don and Rishi travelled to Boston to meet with First Wind Energy. This was Vena’s first close meeting and our founders had run a flawless deal cycle—First Wind’s finance team loved the software, they’d agreed on a fair price and they were excited about the white-glove service they’d get from such a young company.  Stakeholders from both camps were sitting in a boardroom when First Wind’s Chief Information Officer walked through the door. After reviewing the terms of the contract without breaking his poker face at all, he turned to Don and Rishi and said, coolly, “So how many customers do you guys have?” “I looked him right in the eye and told him, “You’re going to be one of our first 20 customers,’” recalls Don. “I think Rishi was sweating a bit, but it all worked out in the end. We’d finally signed our first client—and that’s when things really started to take off for us.” Vena expanded rapidly over the next couple of years as the deals started rolling in and the team got bigger and better. The company moved its office to Islington and Bloor in Toronto after raising $3 million, including an angel investment from Klass Capital. The sales team continued to smash pretty much every target they had, signing some major clients in the process including Nando’s, McDonald’s Canada, Wells Fargo and Kobo. But the most significant early milestone came in June 2014 when George’s Product and Technology team transformed Vena into a cloud-based SaaS solution. The product had previously worked as a strictly on-premise software—and the shift over to cloud laid the groundwork for the next decade of innovation.  “Competitors in our market were moving into the cloud space and there was this huge demand for cloud products in the SaaS industry as a whole,” says George. “Making that transition was a challenging moment for the company because we basically had to rebuild the entire software from scratch. But once we made that decision, everyone at the company was aligned. It’s actually quite remarkable to reflect on how we managed that as a leadership team.” Fall 2014 - Winter 2019: Building a Winning Culture With a Measured Approach to Expansion By the time September 2017 rolled around, Vena had moved once again to its current global headquarters in Toronto’s Liberty Village. The three years leading up to that had produced plenty of exciting growth moments, including: A $30 million Series A funding round led by Centana Growth Partners in July 2016.   Significant investments in headcount for the Professional Services and Customer Success functions. This would help ensure Vena’s growing customer base was well taken care of.   Major C-suite appointments such as Darrell Cox (Chief Financial Officer), Debbie Lillitos (Chief Customer Officer) and Tracey Mikita (Chief People Person).   Vena’s first-ever user conference, VenaNOLA, in May 2017. Hundreds of customers and prospects gathered in New Orleans for the occasion. When Rishi had any free time in between meetings at the new office—a gorgeous, open-concept space within the walls of a refurbished bread factory—he would often take a few minutes to walk around and just take it all in. The buzz of the office, the clattering of keyboards, the excitement of winning new business—there were moments when even Rishi couldn’t believe how far Vena had come. “They might not seem like much, but those little ‘micro-moments’ really stood out for me,” he says. “We always tried to maintain a vibrant, collaborative culture, even as we hired more people and started to evolve into a scale up. We always wanted to ensure our people felt like they were part of our success—so when I walked around the office and saw hundreds of people building their careers here, it really helped me reflect and deeply appreciate that mission.”  Unsurprisingly, our founders weren’t the only ones marvelled by Vena’s trajectory. The firm had caught the attention of JMI Equity, a massive capital investment company and partner to the world’s biggest SaaS brands (including Adaptive Insights, who are Vena’s biggest competitor.) JMI injected Vena with $115 million in January 2019—ultimately laying the foundation for yet another aggressive expansion period. “Every round of funding was always so validating for me,” says George. “It reinforced the reality that we’re building great technology, hiring the right people and really making a difference for our customers in the markets we serve.” Spring 2019 - Summer 2021: Maximizing Scalability Through Product-Led Growth Product-led growth is a go-to-market methodology that relies on SaaS companies using their product to attract and retain customers. Vena accelerated this strategy in the summer of 2019 when Hunter Madeley stepped in to replace Don as Vena’s CEO. “It’s important to never lose sight of the trust customers place in us as we continue to innovate our offerings and prepare for the next phase of growth,” says Hunter, who joined Vena after a decade of leadership scaling the revenue engines at Salesforce and Hubspot. “We have to keep our promise to serve as strategic partners and to keep inspiring our audience with powerful business planning solutions.”  The founders and the rest of the leadership team were quick to rally behind Hunter as everyone started thinking about how to make Vena more accessible to the masses. The firm was serving hundreds of customers, but it was time to scale up to the thousands. The first two years of that journey included a lot of important milestones, such as: Bringing on Allison Munro (Chief Marketing Officer), Tina Golbourne (Chief Operating Officer) and Peter Gilfillan (Chief Sales Officer) to refine the revenue engine.    Replacing in-person conferences with Vena Nation week in May 2020. (After shifting plans quickly in the wake of the global pandemic, Vena hosted a virtual conference experience for the entire finance and operations community.)   The launch of Plan To Grow™, an online learning platform for business planning professionals.    Releasing the first product-led growth initiative—the Vena Preview—in November 2020.   Developing and strategically advertising Pre-Configured Solutions for industries (Vena for SaaS, Vena for Banks and Credit Unions, Vena for Professional Sports Teams, etc.)   “We’re still early on in our Pre-Configured Solutions strategy, but it’s been really awesome to see all these product innovations start coming to life,” says Rishi. “The fact that we designed Vena to work like a platform right from the start has made it easier to listen to the market and solve for a bunch of unique use cases.” For George’s Product and Technology team, the drive to keep on innovating is relentless. But Vena’s original value proposition will always be their guiding light.  “Companies will always have to pivot at times and there will always be challenges associated with that,” says George. “Vena is in a good place, though, because the fundamental value we deliver—using the tools you know and love to solve your business’ problems—is just as relevant today as it was when we first started.”    Planning to Grow for the Next 10 Years and Beyond In May 2021, after a decade of savvy leadership, George announced his decision to step down as Vena’s CTO. It was a bittersweet moment for sure—especially for Rishi and the rest of the leadership team—but it marked yet another milestone in the company’s remarkable history. Vena was finally ready to emerge as a business planning juggernaut with a world-class product, brand and culture that transcends the generations.  “The timing has never been better to work through a transition like this,” says George, who now plans to get back to his roots as an entrepreneur. “The company is in the best position it's ever been. We continue to win and delight customers and are ready to scale into this next phase of growth. We have something incredibly special at Vena. Culturally, as a group, as a brand, we have the opportunity to build something that could outlive all of us.” The next few years will see Vena double down on its current priorities—which means more product-led growth projects, enhancements for Microsoft 365 and scaling to support thousands of customers around the world. George will continue to help Vena grow as a strategic advisor, while Rishi is primed and ready to help Vena win for the next decade and beyond. Today, as both men look back on everything they’ve accomplished together, they can’t help but smile with an incredible sense of pride. It’s been a long, winding journey since that life-changing night at the bar—and the last 10 years have proven there’s a whole lot more to come. “It really gets me excited to think about where we’re going,” says Rishi. “And the culture we’ve been able to build here is definitely what I’m most proud of. It’s the people behind the product who have made sure Vena is built to last—and I’m excited to keep it all going with our awesome customers, partners and support teams.” Ready to start your own growth journey? Find out for yourself what a decade of product innovation looks like. 

Going beyond the numbers to shape a powerful narrative with your data is an important skill for finance leaders to master.   If you start thinking about the world’s best storytellers, you’ll probably lean towards the Shakespeares, Spielbergs and Springsteens of the world. But what about Agile CFOs? They’re pretty savvy storytellers too. When it comes to running a business, strategic decisions are always driven by data. And as every organization’s data analytics maestro, it’s the CFO’s job to uncover the story behind that data. Agile CFOs, though, take this a few steps further: They’re constantly challenging business plans, leading through change with confidence, fostering company-wide teamwork and telling the story beyond the bottom line. Agile CFOs enable timely, data-driven business planning with the right tools for the job. They’re the driving force behind the company’s plan to grow. Consolidating your financials and reporting the numbers is one thing, but shaping a powerful narrative to drive informed decision making across the business is another. Agile CFOs don’t just deliver the what, they also deliver the why behind every number and every business plan. It’s called data storytelling—and it’s a skill every finance leader should practice. In this blog post, you will learn: 1 What is data storytelling? 2 Why is data storytelling so important? 3 How to master data storytelling Watch Now Storytelling for Business Growth Watch Alex Banayan's exclusive Plan to Grow keynote and learn how to leverage storytelling to drive your growth journey forward. What Is Data Storytelling? Data storytelling is a creative way of consolidating, analyzing and presenting important data in a format that’s easy to understand. In finance, data storytelling complements FP&A processes such as budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting by providing legitimate context and reasoning behind the reported figures. It helps CFOs turn numbers into narratives with input from every arm of the organization—ultimately resulting in a more strategic, reliable and well-informed business planning process. (Check out The Ultimate Guide to Financial Planning and Analysis to help you realize your company's full growth potential.) Why Is Data Storytelling So Important? Data storytelling is crucial because it helps you make a business case for financial decisions. It also allows you to contextualize and justify financial results. When a company needs to take a necessary action, data storytelling is how Agile CFOs identify, plan for and communicate the path forward to the rest of the company. Let’s say, for example, that you need to implement a hiring freeze in a recession or make a substantial investment in product development to compete with larger competitors. Data storytelling allows you to clearly communicate the projected result of that decision—both financial and non-financial—and align stakeholders across the company on business objectives moving forward. Another example could be if your business overspent on sales and marketing. Data storytelling is how you articulate: Were our quotas too low? Is our advertising budget too high? What really happened here and how can we fix it? Data storytelling puts it all into perspective and that’s why it’s so important for successful finance-led business planning. Check out this interview with Vena CFO Darrell Cox to learn more about the importance of data storytelling in finance. Top 3 Data Storytelling Best Practices With business conditions evolving as rapidly as they are these days, planning for the future of your company means having to make a lot of quick decisions. Now more than ever, you need to know how the choices you make today will influence the bottom line tomorrow. It makes insightful data storytelling an even bigger priority, which is why Agile CFOs use integrated planning tools to do it well. Make sure you follow these three best practices so you can master data storytelling at your organization: 1. Visualize Your Data With Business Intelligence Dashboards Many people are visual learners by nature and that’s why dashboards are such an essential aspect of data storytelling. When configured properly, dashboards can be used to visualize a range of metrics and KPIs from across your business. They can include graphs, charts and scorecards that bring your financial and non-financial data to life. Given how simple they typically are to read, dashboards make it easy to align your numbers with compelling narratives. A recent survey from BPM Partners suggests they’re growing in popularity too, and for good reason. Well-built dashboards allow you to: Measure real-time performance trends and identify opportunities for improvement   Benchmark important KPIs and track results against those benchmarks over time   Identify relationships between metrics and report what those mean for your business   Provide key stakeholders with a visual guide to their reported numbers   Ensure transparency, accountability and engagement across the organization by showing employees how their efforts are moving the needle Every company’s business intelligence strategy is different, and there’s no one right or wrong way to set up your dashboards. It all depends on the story you’re trying to tell, so make sure you build the dashboards you need to tell that story effectively. Read this dashboarding guide to find out more about how to engage your stakeholders with powerful business stories. 2. Eliminate Data Silos So You Can Tell the Whole Story Data storytelling in finance is about more than just revenue and profit margins. In order to tell a complete story with your numbers and convey their impact on the entire business, you need to weave cross-functional operations data into the narratives you build as well. Consider this example: Your company is preparing to launch a new flagship product offering. You’re adjusting your budgets and forecasts and planning for some additional revenue. In addition to the bottom-line projections, the story you tell in your management reporting or your board meeting should answer the following questions: How will this affect headcount? Will we need to hire more staff to accommodate higher revenue targets?   If the product launch doesn’t generate as much interest as we expect it to, do we still have enough active deals in our sales pipeline to meet our goals?   Is our infrastructure equipped for a more rigorous production schedule? Will we need to invest in a new facility? The answers to those questions shape the narrative you’re trying to develop here, but the specific data you need might not be easily accessible. If critical data is siloed in multiple disparate source systems—such as your ERP/GL, CRM, HRIS and fixed asset tracking system—you’ll have to hunt down numbers manually which is tedious and prone to error. It makes agile, data-driven storytelling a lot more difficult to do. That’s where integrated planning tools come in. With one centralized platform that connects your existing data sources, you can eliminate data silos and build a single source of truth your entire company can trust. Not only will you save time, but your cross-functional stakeholders will also find it easier to participate in the strategic planning process—ultimately resulting in more reliable business narratives that tell the entire story. Learn how to integrate your source systems for faster, smarter and more efficient data storytelling. 3. Know Your Audience and Inspire Them To Take Action “People hear statistics, but they feel stories.” Those are some wise words from Brent Dykes, a frequent Forbes contributor and author of Effective Data Storytelling. The statement addresses exactly why data storytelling is so powerful: It evokes emotion, inspires action and drives positive outcomes for your business. It’s about rallying your colleagues and planning as a team after drawing them in with a story. After all, people tend to perform better if they know their role in your company’s narrative and can feel the impact of their contributions. That’s why you need to shape stories that appeal to the audience you’re trying to engage. Not everybody is motivated by numbers alone, and Agile CFOs understand this better than anyone. Let’s say, for example, that you’re reporting on a major loss that wasn’t in your quarterly plan. You can’t just send around the same spreadsheet and simply say, “there are the results.” If you want to inspire action, you’ll have to tailor the story purposefully so every department understands how to respond. Sales leaders in this case might need a forecast update so they can realign targets with their team. Operations teams might want a detailed breakdown of transactional data to ensure that nothing was overlooked. Investors will want to know if your three-year plan is affected, and HR leaders will want a heads up if they need to prepare for layoffs. Now, instead of just reporting the numbers, you’re shaping an actionable narrative driven by legitimate financial data. And like any good story, it’s all about the delivery—you need to be clear, assertive and personable so your message doesn’t get lost in the fold. As you continue to tell stories with your data and plan for today and tomorrow, ask yourself: What am I trying to achieve with this narrative? What action do I want to drive?   How can I tell this story in an empathetic way that resonates with my stakeholders?   What’s important to my audience and how does this story address that? By answering those questions daily and following the best practices above, you’ll master data storytelling and be able to support agile finance-led business planning. And with the right tools at your disposal—including dashboards and integrated planning solutions—uncovering the narrative behind your numbers will be a breeze. Data-driven storytelling will grow into a standard process for your finance team as you continue to navigate change and plan for the future of your business. Watch Now Eager To Learn More? Watch Alex Banayan's exclusive Plan to Grow keynote and learn how to leverage storytelling to drive your growth journey forward.

  The market shifts. New business goals are established or technologies introduced. A crisis emerges that has everyone trying to keep up. Change in all its forms is an inevitable part of doing business—and empowering change begins with a foundation of people, processes and tools. But to create the best path through and ensure that you continue to thrive, you need to draw on proven change management principles that align the organization and keep it moving forward.  What is Change Management? Change management involves the approach, techniques and tools you use to prepare your organization for change and to guide them through it. Change, after all, is a process in itself—and one that affects every area of business. As such, it needs to be approached thoughtfully, with the right plan in place, to be successful. Why is Change Management Important? Even when it’s done right, change can be intimidating. When done wrong, or too quickly, it can become a source of confusion and fear. Yet the process around change can often be undervalued by the executive team and can lack commitment throughout the organization as a whole. It can be mismanaged, initiated without proper due diligence, brought on too late or activated without proper planning. As part of the finance team, you have the opportunity to set the tone and to build commitment around the process of change, ensuring the right plan is in place and making sure it’s executed properly—then playing a pivotal role at every point.   That’s where change management comes in. The Change Management Process 1. Determine Your Vision  For change to resonate and take hold, there has to first be a solid reason for it—a vision that’s agreed upon by everyone involved and communicated company-wide. Change just for the sake of change will fizzle out before it even gets started—no one’s looking for a make-work project—so a clear purpose is key to driving it through successfully and a strong plan of action integral to ensuring it meets that vision in the end. The best projects are transparent and incremental, treating change like a marathon, not a sprint. Building short and medium-term goals along the way can help ensure success and making sure everyone has access to the same information will keep them all on the same path. But more important than anything is a shared end goal that can act as a finish line for the entire process, aligning everyone towards the same objective and making sure they all have the same expectations going forward. 2. Identify and Listen to Your Stakeholders  Once that vision is in place, the next step is identifying and communicating with stakeholders at all levels of the company (and sometimes beyond). Having the right people on board is key to the success of any change management project and to ensuring that the organization is aligned at every stage. A stakeholder plan will help determine the process of how change will be introduced and who needs to be involved to make it happen—from end users all the way up to the CEO. After all, the success of any new idea is reliant on your organization’s willingness to institute that change. The most successful programs also understand the emotions that change can inspire—getting stakeholder support will start to mitigate fear and confusion and create a culture that celebrates change rather than dreads it. That endeavor continues with the next step of building a team. 3. Build a Team to Facilitate Change  For real change to happen, it has to  be an organization-wide undertaking with champions in every department. That means interacting with individuals at every level of the organization—and not just en masse. Group communications can help make sure the message gets through, but don't take into consideration the individual struggles, insecurities or frustrations that are a common part of change. Facilitating this type of one-on-one communication as well as the listening and collaboration required with it relies on a team. A cross-departmental team will take the cue of the project’s stakeholders and go from there, helping to anticipate problems at all levels and prepare for customer reactions. Bringing in more people earlier in the process so that every part of the organization has a voice can also create a deeper and wider-held commitment to the process underway. 4. Support Change While It’s Happening  A common objective, well laid out vision and the right team are all integral to initiating change. For that change to take hold, though, you need to monitor and support it while it’s underway. This ensures it’s staying on course and helps you identify any resistance, risks or new challenges that come up along the way and do whatever is necessary to mitigate those circumstances as they happen. Making ongoing adjustments while the project is in progress may also be necessary. Those adjustments could be around the technology solutions being used or with the processes in play, to keep things moving forward efficiently and intelligently in ways that fit the business goals. It’s the right combination of processes and technology that will ultimately move an organization forward successfully towards the finish line. And of course, people are integral at this stage too—driving those process and technology decisions.  Identifying and Rationalizing Your Data Data should be a driving factor at every stage of change, fueling your decision making and helping teams identify trends and insights to guide the change ahead. It empowers data-driven storytelling and lets key stakeholders better visualize where the company has been, where it is now and where it’s going. As the main source of trusted data within the company, the finance team is especially pivotal in providing that data, making sense of it and turning it into meaningful insights and strategic direction. Yet no organization’s data is perfect. In fact, it’s often messy and disconnected, hard to get to and difficult to translate into meaningful information. Which is why any change management process is reliant on connecting disparate data sources and making the right data accessible and usable. That means consolidating financial and non-financial data together for a consistent view, eliminating duplicate data or data that’s not usable and mapping the lineage of data points. Doing so builds a data foundation and helps you glean the information necessary to drive the change management process and build towards business growth.  Reaching the Change Management Finish Line With proper buy-in and the right processes, people and technology in place, change can be manageable—whether it emerges from within your company or outside of it. But it requires a smart plan of action, the right data and a shared objective to truly get off the ground and thrive. With all the right components in place, change management can be transformational, putting your business on a new path that will see them through today and forward into the future. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Even with all of the right pieces in place, it takes continual planning, monitoring and communication to be successful. And the finance team can play a critical role in leading the way.    Learn more about how you can quickly get started with best practices for agile planning, or talk to a Vena FP&A expert 1:1 with no obligation to help you plan for today and tomorrow.

Why the right people, process and tools are essential to organizational transformation.   Change is part of any business. When navigated well, it can lead to growth and gain. If not, it risks having a less positive effect. But good times or bad, the one truth is this: change isn’t going anywhere.  That’s why having an accepted change management process in place is key to agile business planning—putting organizations at the ready for whatever those changes might be, from shifts in the market and emerging competitors to new innovations or rapid growth. Building a positive environment for change, though, relies on leaders who can take the pulse of an organization and use a dynamic business model to drive growth.  For many companies, this means finance departments are taking on those leadership roles. By providing the insights and data necessary for operational decision making, they can help set goals and ensure the company is staying on track towards them, facilitating quick and intelligent choices along the way. But not all finance teams are up for the task—without a foundation in place to see past the numbers, they have no way of unveiling the insights underneath or leading the way to a successful evolution with agility and confidence. So where does the path to change begin for finance teams? To enable informed and intelligent decision making, they begin by putting the right people, processes and tools in place. The Road to Maturity People, process and tools create the foundation for insight and agility—helping to build a better way for today and pave a path towards tomorrow. And it’s up to the finance team to keep pace, shifting their functional responsibilities from transactional to more strategic. While they’re helping to guide the rest of the company through change, pushing the organization forward, they also can’t forget their own evolution. Company culture, executive buy-in and—most importantly—the maturity of the people, processes and tools in place will all play a part in the finance team’s capacity to do just that. As finance teams mature, they’ll begin to seek out and identify more sophisticated processes and tools to help them better analyze and find insight within the data—putting them in a place to steer organizational change when the need emerges. And if finance has its own house in order when the executive team comes knocking, they’ll be equipped to help other teams begin to identify the people, processes and tools they need to fill the gap and move forward.   For most organizations, the path to finance capability maturity looks something like this: For most companies, that road to maturity begins with the people on your team. The Heart of Everything: People People are central to everything your company does—from the bottom to the top, you wouldn’t get very far without them. They facilitate relationships and build the processes that connect the organization. They choose the technology that helps you work together efficiently and collaboratively. And they provide the intelligence and intuition that will let you look through the data to identify the trends and insights within.  While most finance teams start out more transaction oriented, it’s the people and the knowledge that they bring that, with the right company culture, will see them evolve to a more strategic role. And eventually, when people and business goals align, those teams can become strategic leaders—driving the entire change management process.  As you build change into your company, the right people will: Contribute deep analytical and strategic thinking to build informed insights based on their business knowledge and the data available. Set the vision and map out the process that will drive change through the days ahead. Talk to customers and internal stakeholders to identify upcoming trends and the questions that need to be answered—as well as the best data to facilitate both.  Champion change as it’s happening and revise the plan when necessary. Lead a company-wide team to support the efforts underway. But even the smartest people won’t get far if you have inefficient, unrationalized processes and the wrong technology or tools in place. Setting the Rhythm: Process If people are at the heart of organizational change, process is the rhythm of the organization that drives it.  Informed by your people and company culture, process will dictate how you collaborate. And when a disruption is underway, the right processes will let you pivot quickly to react. For instance, whether you budget and forecast annually, quarterly or monthly will make a difference when it’s time to identify cuts and reduce spend, since it influences the accuracy of your data and how informed your people are. And to improve speed, adopting integrated planning or rolling forecasting models might make sense—but will only bear fruit after undertaking a careful examination of process and putting any necessary changes in action to make them work.  And just like people rely on processes to work efficiently and effectively, those processes can fall apart when people aren’t on board to support and champion them—especially at the highest executive levels. Teams and the organizations around them need to seek out the value each process offers and the outlook it brings. As that internal investment evolves, they can move from more financially focused processes with periodic cycles, towards processes that truly enable proactive decision making at every turn. In times of change, best-in-class processes can: Fuel decision making and identify the changes that need to be made.  Provide near-term, rolling and long-term outlooks for different viewpoints into future business health. Drive business accountability and transparency. Determine that the right targets and measurements are in place. Identify the best actions and investments at every step. Together, process and people provide the base for all change. Even without the most sophisticated software, they’ll help finance departments create an agile environment to improve the decision making ahead. But the right tools will facilitate that journey and put new efficiencies and capabilities in place. The Final Piece: Tools   The last piece of the puzzle is the technology you choose to use to empower your people and enable your processes. Technology keeps processes collaborative and timely and ensures people stay informed, involved and empowered to act. Having technology tools in place can facilitate organizational growth and the change management process, but it’s just as critical that the tools you use fit your company culture. Technology bells and whistles go nowhere if people don’t know how to use them or if they don’t complement or can’t evolve with the processes you have in place.  Your tools, then, evolve as you do—from those that facilitate individual productivity to those configured for processes that are more repeatable and data intense. And the deeper you are in your maturity as a finance function, the more sophisticated tools you’ll need to help you meet your goals. As your organization matures, the right tools will help teams: Connect disparate types of data across financial and non-financial sources. Visualize data in ways that facilitate communication and collaboration.  Offer a real-time view of the changes underway and the most critical KPIs. Align the company’s mission timeline and cash availability. Identify, integrate and automate drivers into business plans. Align KPIs to strategy and identify the possibilities available to drive better decision making. Through all of that, your team will be able to pivot your business model, as needed, to facilitate smarter decision making and navigate change.  But while change might be inevitable, it’s also incremental. Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, your finance team won’t reach full maturity overnight. Your people, processes and tools will continue to mature in order to support the organization—until the finance team is leading the way to positive growth and gain.  Agile Planning and Quick Start Transform the Way You Think About Your Business Learn more about how you can quickly get started with best practices for agile planning, or talk to a Vena FP&A expert 1:1 with no obligation to help you plan for today and tomorrow.

Today, finance teams are at the forefront of change—leading their businesses as they plan for today and tomorrow. With this responsibility comes the need for a new way of working: an Agile methodology for finance-led business planning.  Agile finance-led business planning is about more than just informing quick decision making. It’s about providing a platform for adaptability. It’s about planning differently and growing smarter. It’s about harnessing change. Agile finance teams value:  Cross-functional teamwork over a siloed approach to planning An evolving plan over staying static Empowered teams over burdened individuals A growth mindset over fixed thinking And they follow these seven core principles to guide their way forward. 1. Change is an Opportunity You Unlock With Ongoing Iteration and Optimization At some point, your plan will be wrong. Your plan is important, but your planning process is even more so. Plan and review habitually. Welcome change. Treat it as an opportunity and approach any plan as just one iteration of a continually evolving roadmap. Use forward-looking analysis such as scenario modeling to find ways of harnessing change as a means of establishing a competitive advantage through experimentation and adaptation. Speed up your planning and review cycles and drive more nimble, forward-looking decision making by running your planning process in “sprints.” Plan, analyze, execute, measure, report, repeat. A business plan that’s meeting your organizational objectives will be your primary measure of progress.   2. You Excel Daily to Move the Business From Accounting Mystery to Planning Mastery Be proactive and agile in your planning process. Look at leading indicators daily to get a sense of changes on the horizon and what they might mean for your business. Model multiple scenarios in real time with known data-driven variable inputs. Forecast weekly. Always be assessing and managing cash flow. Build more agility and flexibility into your resource reallocation. Report on performance daily to deliver insights that will drive ongoing informed decision making. To be agile, finance teams and key business stakeholders need to be able to maintain a constant pace. Leverage an Agile process on a frequent basis to promote a sustainable approach to finance-led business planning so your business is well poised to pivot quickly. 3. Only by Working as a Team Do You Plan Successfully Through Change To maximize the impact of your finance-led planning process, you need to have the right people involved. Business leaders and finance teams must work together regularly to drive cross-functional alignment by drawing teams out of isolation and into open communication. Collaboration is the process, teamwork is the result—cross-functional teams must plan and act in unison under a common goal and shared vision so the organization as a whole can effectively plan and adapt to change. Regular input from cross-functional contributors is critical for providing finance teams with access to the leading indicators they need to create early warning systems. These enable organizations to anticipate change, to drive plans for any scenario and result and to pivot quickly when required. Take the lead in tearing down data silos to create a unified view of financial and non-financial data so all teams can move from different spreadsheets to the same page.   4. Through Continuous Learning and Improvement, You Pave the Way to Execution Excellence in Business Planning Develop finance teams that: Are inquisitive Want to learn Strive to be better Are detail-oriented Are theoretical  Are creative  Believe and act like they are contributing to the betterment of a whole—to help propel the business forward  Inspire your teams with aspirational goals. Motivate them to perform key tasks with exact precision and strive for incremental improvement as they work to perfect their craft and achieve executional excellence. Encourage them to go beyond the two-dimensional spreadsheet, to combine data from multiple sources  and to reveal the story behind the numbers. 5. Through Storytelling, You Inspire Action and Alignment To drive informed decision making across the entire organization, you must be a master storyteller. Working through business plans in a cross-functional context and getting business leaders on the same page is critical for maintaining alignment across teams. Work with key stakeholders to communicate value in a universal language—how your business planning for any scenario will impact cross-functional departments. Bring together data from across the business to provide a holistic, easy-to-understand view of organizational performance. Know your audience, be a master of persuasion and know how to get people to listen, act and understand the why behind the action. 6. You Use Technology to Maximize Accuracy and Efficiency Simplicity leads to speed and the best plans emerge from self-organizing teams. Amplify your planning process with technology and give teams across the business the tools and data they need for your business to succeed. Automate tedious manual work to save time for impactful, forward-looking analysis. Improve cross-functional collaboration by consolidating data from existing systems and creating an integrated ecosystem for finance-led business planning. Always be on the lookout for emerging tools and technologies that will allow you to provide better, smarter insights to the business.   7. To Build a Healthy Business, You Look Beyond the Bottom Line—And Offer a Different Perspective on Growth Change isn’t possible without a culture that supports it. Create a culture that’s predisposed to embracing change. Build projects around diverse, motivated individuals and give them the environment and support they need to excel. Bring your teams together at regular intervals to reflect on how they can become more effective and then tune and adjust the approach accordingly. Promote ethical leadership and create a culture of ethical accountability. Empower growth wherever you can and motivate your teams to build a healthier business that goes beyond the bottom line. This includes diversity planning, sustainability initiatives and a philosophy of corporate citizenship that understands companies are defined by more than just their bottom line. Inspired by the Manifesto for Agile Software Development

A new survey from the Association for Financial Professionals reveals that FP&A teams are experiencing heightened reporting and analytics requirements, with nearly one in three teams producing a reforecast report every day. The survey—which polled more than 600 FP&A practitioners around the world—examines how finance teams are adjusting to the COVID-19 crisis and its effect on their day-to-day operations. In addition to daily reforecasting, 65% of survey respondents cited “increased internal reporting cycles” when asked about the other activities FP&A teams are involved in, while 70% said “running business continuity exercises to play out difficult scenarios.” These activities are leading to an elevated role for FP&A leaders, as 58% reported that they’re working more closely with senior executives at their organizations. With market conditions evolving as quickly as they are today, FP&A leaders are being called upon to deliver reliable financial insights that will help key stakeholders make strategic, well-informed business decisions. But with more at stake and less room for error, this rising demand for accurate, data-driven reporting also exposes some pain points for FP&A teams: What can be done to make reporting more efficient? How can leadership be empowered with the most up-to-date data available? How can changing business conditions be accounted for and factored into forecasts? The answers to these questions start with leveraging the right technology. Integrated planning tools, for example, allow FP&A teams to automate data consolidation from all their disparate source systems for a real-time view of company-wide financial performance. That way, forecasts and templates update automatically when financial inputs change—ultimately reducing manual effort, maximizing efficiency and ensuring data integrity throughout the strategic planning process. Planning tools also enable agile scenario modeling, which is a critical process during periods of frequent change. With their latest actuals always available for reporting, FP&A teams can test their current plans against a variety of future business scenarios and help leaders better understand how the choices they make today will impact the bottom line tomorrow. Their workloads might be a little heavier, but with the right tools at their disposal, finance leaders can look ahead with confidence as they help their businesses navigate the road ahead. Learn how Vena Agile Planning can streamline your finance-led business planning processes and improve reporting accuracy so you can plan confidently for today and tomorrow. Read AFP’s COVID-19 report here.

When it comes to overcoming the consequences of uncertainty, serial business executive and advisor Ryan Patel knows firsthand that the office of finance takes a front row seat and leadership role in successfully  navigating through change.  Join Ryan as he shares his insights in the CPE-accredited, on-demand video, Navigating Uncertain Times, at PlanToGrow.com, a digital learning platform for business leaders and finance and operations professionals.  Drawing on real-life examples, Ryan recounts how data analysis and quickly pivoting plans prepared the Arizona Cardinals and Starbucks to overcome challenges of economic uncertainty. Among his lessons and takeaways, Ryan uncovers what every company should consider today to plan for the long-term success of its business and talent, including: The “new normal” global business landscape affecting businesses worldwide. The heightened role of company-wide transparency, two-way communication and data interpretation in charting the best path forward for your company. The difference between being cautious and being proactive, and how the difference lies in anticipating uncertainties and making the complicated simple. How digital workforce, data integration, financial reporting and other technologies will help you remain agile and nimble in the face of uncertainty. The need to invest in the mental health and wellness of your team as your business’s most valuable resource. “When you’re proactive during uncertainty, you can actually accelerate the transformation of your business.”  — Ryan Patel Learn from Ryan’s anecdotes and experience how digital technologies, transparency and two-way communication can help your team navigate—even thrive on—the road ahead. Then join Ryan and Vena CEO Hunter Madeley for a fireside chat on applying the lessons of today as the new normal. Hear insights on everything from the end of the five-year plan to investing in health and wellness to ensure your workforce emerges as healthy as your business. Visit PlanToGrow.com to see Ryan’s on-demand video and uncover more insights on how to lead your company to success in the face of uncertain times. Thought Leader Bio Ryan Patel: Global Business Executive, Drucker School of Management Ryan Patel is a renowned authority on global business, scaling companies and fostering collaboration. A serial executive, advisor and board member, today he is a Senior Fellow and Board Director with the Drucker School of Management. Ryan is also a frequent contributor on networks including CNN, BBC, CNBC and Fox Business.

As president of the CFO Leadership Council and the CFO at 26 companies throughout his career, few people understand the role more than Jack McCullough. In his business leadership book Secrets of Rockstar CFOs, Jack draws on his personal experience and over 40 extensive CFO interviews to reveal the common habits, skills and relationships of the world’s most successful finance chiefs. Watch as Jack shares the Secrets of Rockstar CFOs in a CPE-accredited, on-demand video at PlanToGrow.com, a digital learning platform for business leaders and finance and operation professionals.  Jack explains why one CFO and her VP of sales swap roles each month to get a firsthand appreciation of their two very different sides of the business. He reveals why CFOs frequently sit in on product roadmap meetings, important sales calls and key hire interviews. And he shares how an early experience with a certain “CF-NO” inspired him to become what he calls a “CF-GO” and why aspiring CFOs should aim to be one too. “A great CFO is an organization’s secret weapon: Best seller, best recruiter, best deal closer and best fundraiser.” —Jack McCullough Find out why the CFO is the most trusted executive in a company and why the CFO-CEO relationship is its most important. Discover what makes a true rockstar CFO and how to become one for the benefit of your career—and the future of your organization.  Key takeaways you’ll learn from Jack include: Nine essential characteristics common to rockstar CFOs across the globe. Why integrity, transparency and honesty make the CFO a company’s most trusted executive. How and why CFOs should cultivate strong relationships with their CFO, individual board members and even fellow CFOs at key customers and suppliers. The survival value of continuous learning through peer networking groups, online courses, business coaches or mentors and more. Superpowers of rockstar CFOs that frequently make them the most effective strategist, recruiter, deal maker and fundraiser in their company. Watch Jack’s Secrets of Rockstar CFOs session on demand at PlantoGrow.com. Thought Leader Bio Jack McCullough President, CFO Leadership Council Jack is an undisputed CFO expert, having served in the role at 26 companies over his career. He is the president of the CFO Leadership Council and chair of the MIT Sloan CFO Summit. Jack is also a regular contributor to Forbes.com and author of Secrets of Rockstar CFOs.

Before becoming Vena’s CFO, Darrell Cox spent most of his career in FP&A seeing what planning processes worked for some companies that thrived and what proved costly for others. He has long advocated for integrated business planning and tearing down data silos between finance and operational departments.  Eager to share his experiences and lessons with business leaders and finance and operation professionals, Darrell’s “taking the stage” at the Vena Nation virtual conference as a keynote speaker to discuss how agile integrated planning is key to companies not only surviving, but thriving in times of change.  We sat down with Darrell ahead of his must-see Vena Nation keynote on May 12 to find out what agile integrated planning means to him, what makes for a successful planning process, how to thrive in the face of change and how to make the best planning decisions for today and tomorrow.  What are the essential elements of a successful finance-led business plan? The best plans are the byproduct of effective planning processes, the most successful ones sharing two essential elements: they’re aligned to company-wide business objectives, and they’re optimized to pivot quickly to detect early signals (good and bad) and facilitate appropriate course corrections.  Being ready to pivot is—simply put—pivotal. The one thing I can tell you about a plan, any plan, is that it is going to be wrong at some point. It’s just a matter of when and by how much. At some point, you will need to move to a new plan. This means knowing when to anticipate a change for the business, how to be agile to make that change, how to adapt and how to move forward.  Delivering a successful plan requires lots of good data at hand, an effective and efficient process and a great planning tool that orchestrates all these elements in a single, finance-owned system.  Can you speak to an example of a company that got agile planning right? One of the most dramatic and well- known examples is Netflix. You may recall the firm decided early in its history to focus on renting movies instead of selling them, poivoting its business model to the subscription and streaming product we know today. If they hadn’t done that, Blockbuster might still be a household name today.  Closer to home, just East of Toronto, there once was a very prosperous company called McLaughlin Carriage Company that started manufacturing carriages in 1869. By 1915, they were really good at it, producing a new carriage every 10 minutes.  But while business was going well, 1915 was also the year McLaughlin sold its carriage operations to focus on building car bodies and installing drive trains from Buick, another former carriage manufacturer. Eventually Mclaughlin became General Motors Canada. You can imagine where they’d be if they had stuck to the horse and buggy market instead.  What are some of the main benefits of effective integrated business planning to companies? To finance departments? Or to you as a CFO? Effective planning helps to prioritize and set objectives for the company as a whole and for each of its departments. You can’t do everything and neither can your company, so you’ve got to prioritize and focus where you spend your time and resources (i.e. cash).  Effective planning also aligns people around these prioritized goals and objectives. Netflix decided to focus on renting movies rather than selling them, even though sales were driving the business at the time. The entire company needed to be aligned to be successful in making this change and an integrated process ensured this happened.  A successful plan will then establish an effective framework for decision making. It will help ensure everyone is making decisions that work in concert with that framework, and again, that roll up to support the overall company’s priorities and objectives.  For finance leaders and their teams leading integrated planning processes, a particular benefit is maximizing the impact of the finance function at their organization—ultimately maximizing the potential of the business as a whole.  How can CFOs ensure their plans are set up to pivot? What are the best practices for a plan to be agile and adaptable? As I’ve mentioned, while I can’t tell you when or by how much, any budget or plan will prove to be wrong at some point. Good or bad, that’s simply a reality and there’s no point worrying about it. You just need to be ready for it. Uncertainties arise from inside and outside the company all the time and they can be your enemy—or your friend.  The best way to be ready for your plan to be wrong is to optimize your planning process from end to end. I set up my process to detect the earliest signals I can that a plan needs to be changed by analyzing and reporting on leading indicators and not by relying on traditional, lagging indicators.  I make sure I bring in as many stakeholders into the process as early as possible, getting their input and encouraging discussion and debate. And I always remember to be open and transparent. I also use a planning system to ensure I can do all of these things as fast as possible without compromising on things such as data timeliness and accuracy. You need to have a fast and efficient process to be agile and adaptable.  You mentioned that for a planning process to be agile, you need to focus on leading indicators. What do you mean? To use a baseball analogy, consider that hitters need to start their swing before the ball crosses the plate or—for the best hitters—before it even leaves the pitcher’s hand. If hitters wait until the ball crosses the plate, there’s no chance they can score a base hit.  Put another way, the umpire calling a strike is the lagging indicator. The leading indicators start while the pitcher is still winding up for the throw.  As a finance leader, if you want to react as quickly as possible to increasing or decreasing sales, you need to be looking at leading indicators such as pipeline health and the quality of sales leads; leads that will eventually cross the plate and convert into sales. If you are only looking at sales or revenue, you are waiting for the umpire to make the call.  The great news is that with a solid planning solution, you can bring leading indicators into the planning process early and often. You can have the necessary historic data on which to base your plan and to report against it in a timely and efficient manner.  Leading indicators are critical to me in my CFO role, which I often refer to as Vena’s chief storytelling officer. Yes, my job includes delivering monthly financial statements (lagging indicators), but more importantly, it’s about using leading indicators to tell management and my board a compelling story about where the company is, where it’s headed and where we should be going. And that’s how CFOs can best inform the smartest decisions about the future, to plan with agility and confidence for today and tomorrow.  Hear more from Darrell during his Vena Nation keynote—Plan for Today and Tomorrow. If you haven’t already, register now for your free All Access pass to Vena Nation today.