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Fractional CFOs provide strategic financial guidance and expertise to companies on a contract basis. Small, growing businesses that have never had a financial officer are often the ones most in need of help. What is it like jumping into an organization where you have no understanding of where your losses are coming from, what your actual operating costs are, or why you always have excess inventory? Eric W Neumann has solved many client problems as a part-time CFO at New Life CFO Services in Dallas. Our writer Katie Kuehner-Hebert asked him to provide examples of two notable client engagements and…

Editor's Note: For many years chief executive officer Columnist Jonathan Burns died He passed away on May 7 at age 75 after a long and courageous battle with cancer. An MIT professor, consultant, and co-founder of Profit Isle, he was a brilliant mind, a thoughtful businessman, and a kind person. We will miss him. This column is one of several he sent us before his death. *** Recently, I was involved in a discussion about a large strategic investment that a company was considering — a potentially game-changing investment that involved the development of a significant new business capability for…

Editor's Note: For many years chief executive officer Columnist Jonathan Burns died He passed away on May 7 at age 75 after a long and courageous battle with cancer. An MIT professor, consultant, and co-founder of Profit Isle, he was a brilliant mind, a thoughtful businessman, and a kind person. We will miss him. This column is one of several he sent us before his death. *** Recently, I was involved in a discussion about a large strategic investment that a company was considering — a potentially game-changing investment that involved the development of a significant new business capability for…

Question: Why do once successful businesses fail? Answer: They aren't reevaluating their core revenue streams often enough. If you've ever built a business from scratch, you know that in the early stages you have to get your priorities straight: you have to identify the big rocks, the high-level pieces, and get it right. Over time, you build up aggregates around larger rocks to strengthen and support them, thus avoiding as many future risks as possible and maintaining your advantage. Then many of the medium sized aggregates become entire divisions, each with their own subset of goals and strategies, further strengthening…

Editor's note: In response to overwhelming demand among small business leaders for practical, cutting-edge tools and professional development in generative AI skills, Chief Executive Group launched AI CONNECT, a learning community for ongoing training and sharing of AI tools and best practices among business leaders. It's low-cost, highly effective, and available live or on-demand. Join us > Companies with talented employees who know how to work with AI in their roles will dominate their industries. As the recent 2024 Work Trend Index annual report from Microsoft and LinkedIn noted, “The data is in: 2024 is the year AI in the…

McKinsey recently released a global survey of CFOs that revealed that the biggest obstacles to deriving value from data and technology are organizational, not technical. The most significant obstacles were the finance team's heavy workload and the lack of related capabilities within the team. Technical issues such as inadequate IT infrastructure and poor data quality were cited less frequently. Leslie Cotton, CFO and chairman of Labor Finders, a national industrial staffing firm based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is a big believer in leveraging automation. “By automating certain processes, we've freed up our staff from a ton of data entry…

Conagra Brands products are household names in kitchens around the country. A major force in the packaged food industry, the company is behind an impressive array of popular brands, from Hunt’s ketchup, to Healthy Choice frozen meals, to Pam Cooking Spray. In this episode, Jack McCullough speaks with executive vice president and CFO David Marberger about his journey to becoming CFO at Conagra Brands and the company’s transformation—selling or spinning off $7 billion worth of business in 2016, and making a major acquisition in 2018—to become the pure-play branded food titan it is today. He shares how they successfully handled…

Spending time with talentBut directors say time constraints are a challenge, with half of those surveyed citing “competing priorities for the board's attention/tight schedules and limited time” as the biggest barrier to the oversight practices they consider most effective, such as direct engagement with employees.Dozier counters that boards simply need to commit to putting in all the time necessary to get talent management right. “If you're a director, you should make time for everything that's important,” he says. “So if that means you have to have an eight-hour meeting or two days, that's the answer. Take your time and don't…

“Strategic pivots” are all the rage—and a necessity for more CEOs. But how you get to the point of launching a major change in strategy, and how you execute it, can be just as important as the pivot you make. Think about transformation decisions CEOs are making all over the place these days. They’re reacting to technology disruptions, drastic market shifts, restive customers, the accelerating swirls of domestic politics and global events—and more. These things can produce highly consequential new challenges or breathtaking new opportunities, and leaders must lean into both. “Thirty percent of any given sector is in transformation…

IMARC Group's report “E-Rickshaw Manufacturing Plant Project Report 2024: Industry Trends, Factory Setup, Machinery, Raw Material, Investment Opportunities, Cost & Revenue” provides a comprehensive guide to setting up an E-Rickshaw manufacturing plant. The report covers various aspects ranging from a broad market overview to intricate details such as unit operations, raw material & utility requirements, infrastructure needs, machinery requirements, manpower needs, packaging & transportation requirements, etc.In addition to the operational aspects, the report also provides detailed insights into the e-rickshaw manufacturing process, project economics, covering crucial aspects like capital investment, project funding, operational costs, revenue and expenditure forecast, fixed and…