BACKGROUND
12 months ago I became the CFO of a Fintech startup called Banjo, whilst launching my own financial modelling consultancy firm Model Citizn.
It was a perfect match. Banjo only needed a few days a week, sometimes all week, sometimes once a week and I was starting a new business from scratch so had no idea what demands would be made on my time.
However, as my clients grew even a fully dedicated single day a week with Banjo became a challenge for me whilst I was needing to support multiple clients on an adhoc basis.
Being available for my clients at the drop of a hat is every client’s dream consultant but having a permanent part time role was making that dream somewhat unrealistic. Not being able to flex my time was a challenge.
I had both client demands and CFO responsibilities which I needed to deliver on.
WHY DID I MAKE 75% OF MY OWN ROLE REDUNDANT?
I really had no other option but to disrupt my own role and automate my tasks from 2–3 days a week to 2–3 days a month.
I simply couldn’t (and didn’t want to) step away from the CFO duties (which included cashflow modelling, credit modelling and reporting, valuations and assisting on debt and equity raising). I was determined to make my business a success whilst building a portfolio career and growing clients.
Banjo was the best place for me to experiment and it worked like a dream for both of us.
I realised by disrupting my own role it gave me the opportunity to tell the story to clients and help others who were afraid of exploring it.
Being part of the transformation is a learning opportunity which can help you and others do more interesting work whilst creating more value for your employer and most importantly yourself.
Whether we like it or not robots are going to have a profound impact on all key finance processes, posing a threat to those that don’t embrace it, but creating many opportunities for those that do. For example the key finance reconciliation/control processes (e.g bank recons) and basic/standardised management and financial reporting, which is largely still manually performed today. This is driving a big demand for automation skills for key finance processes (hence the rise in demand for financial modelling) and more valued advice in relation to accounting matters and future business performance and less focus on the preparation of historical results.
RELEVANCE FOR THOSE IN FULL TIME JOBS.
At this point you’re probably wondering how this post is relevant to someone in a full-time role.
It’s very relevant. The journey of automation and disruption throws up new opportunities that simply aren’t evident or intuitive in your current role. The natural reaction is to perceive it as a threat, when it’s actually an opportunity (assuming you are willing to adapt).
If you think that your role isn’t going to be impacted, read the 13 future trends that will shape business and society, then perhaps you need to stay closer to reality. Having worked in the corporate world for close to 20 years it’s easy to lose track of what’s really happening outside the 4 walls of a skyscraper.
WHAT TECHNOLOGY WAS I USING?
Given the strategic and highly-customised nature of my CFO role at Banjo, Microsoft Excel provided the most powerful and flexible solution, but very time intensive. I had researched a number of technology applications for automation but nothing is quite like an Excel based content management system in Modano.
Excel is still one of the largest software packages used in the world due to its powerful flexibility. This means as business conditions, laws and your strategy changes so can your Excel model.
Modano (an Excel Add-In) is enabling people to share content, automate financial modelling and systemising spreadsheet processes, as it did for me.
Banjo was one of the first fintechs in Australia to implement Modano’s dynamic rolling (actuals updated each month) 3-way financial modelling and content management technology for Excel.
The deliverables where not straight forward including cashflow modelling (fund/trust and management company), valuations, debt covenant reporting and board reporting including break-even analysis, all completed in a couple of days after each month end cycle.
Implementing this type of technology, amongst other automated processes, is the essence of the tech in fintech and why traditional business models are under threat. This can flow onto job losses as those traditional businesses must maintain cash and preserve profits.
WHY SHOULD YOU DO IT TO YOURSELF?
Most importantly it’s better to be part of the journey than merely a passenger to the process.
There is a major risk for passengers / employees desperately holding onto the security of full time jobs.
Security and full-time employment doesn’t exist, in case you missed the newsflash. Traditional businesses faced with disruption and falling revenue have no option but to reduce cost.
This isn’t going to change, just see the CEDA research (which is already almost 2 years old at the time of writing this). More than 5 million Australian jobs will be gone in 10–15 years. Whilst this isn’t going to happen overnight the change has already started.
Can you think of what will happen if someone got rid of 75% of the work you did today (as I did to myself), what will you do? Rather than waiting to face that fact, act now.
There will be 3 million truck drivers in the US displaced by driverless trucks, like Uber which completed its maiden delivery of beers.
The tighter full time employees shut their eyes, the safer they think they might be. This is not only flawed but the rate of change (in the real world) is accelerating and time is running out on missed opportunities that are right in front of you today.
If this hasn’t convinced you let’s summarise the pros and cons of actively driving disruption in the work place.
PROS vs CONS (IF YOU’RE STILL NOT CONVINCED)
Pro
Con
The workplace is changing in many different facets, if you don’t change with it you will be left out in the cold needing to change anyway, but without a job. Think now and act.
PRACTICAL STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TODAY TO GO ON THE JOURNEY.
If you are working on a spreadsheet-based processes (which is still a very large proportion of corporate tasks) then you should consider the following:
If you are interested, reach out to Lance at Model Citizn to explore support to in you automating, streamlining and leveraging some of the latest technologies.