What are the top priorities for CFOs and finance leaders in 2023? Find out in this blog series! Each week, we’ll explore a new topic that’ll help you tackle the year head-on.

Priority #3: Enable growth

Are you set up to enable business growth in a disruptive market? As economic uncertainty continues to loom overhead, short-term financial health, cash flow, and profitability will likely be at the forefront of your mind. An instinct to protect your organization’s margins may prompt a return to capital discipline, however reducing growth investments or only focusing on short-term opportunities can make it difficult to maintain a competitive advantage over new entrants and incumbents.

With less margin for error, it’s critical to invest more selectively to achieve long-term goals without compromising financial health and profitability. But how do you enable growth across the enterprise with recessionary shockwaves on the horizon? Value levers are key.

Each business function needs to shift its focus to determine where it can have the most significant impact on the organization’s growth and profitability, both in the short and longer term. Which products are most profitable for sales to focus on, factoring in rising raw material, utility, and delivery costs? If marketing generates dramatically increased demand for a particular service, will the cost of delivering the increased quantity be viable? Would the extra capacity of a new production line outweigh the cost of getting it up and running, or could that money be better spent elsewhere?

Answering these questions is easier said than done, especially under time pressure in a rapidly changing market. Doing so requires a smarter approach to planning that enables instant modeling of the impact of each value lever on the rest of the organization. This insight drives accountability and effectiveness and allows your team to lead enterprise value creation while empowering other departments to grow in the most profitable way.

Your finance team shouldn’t just be working to improve the bottom line. Yes, improving cash, working capital, collection, and cost savings is extremely important. However, your team should also work company-wide to analyze the entire organizational value chain as a catalyst from within to help all divisions to create value, whether it is the supply chain, commercial team, manufacturing, IT, marketing, or sales.

Enabling growth requires a smarter approach to planning, and that requires a redefinition of the finance operating model. More on that is to come in our upcoming priority blog #4.

Check out the other blogs in this series:

• 2023 Finance Priority #1: Navigate through disruption
• 2023 Finance Priority #2: Make bold decisions
• 2023 Finance Priority #4: Adopt smarter ways of working
• 2023 Finance Priority #5: Look for talent beyond finance & accounting