The measurement of results reached by the company needs to be done on a regular basis. On the basis of this measurement data provided by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) regarding debt refinancing are analyzed, and other wide varieties of financial decisions are made by the CEO. CFO careers are frequently held in check when those measurements are lacking.
Thus, the setting of measurable as well as significant long-term goals will require that both the CEO and the CFO work together on the various tasks and personally dispense assignments to each. The CEOs cannot do it themselves, nor can the CFOs. The CFO jobs in this instance rely on a broad area of business intelligence. The CFOs have to provide data to help the CEOs in making decisions.
As part of CEO job, the CEO needs to set benchmarks but prior to that the CEO needs to have solid evidence before devoting resources to improvements. This is where the CFO becomes indispensable, for benchmarks are extracted from the numbers involved in the company. The CEO needs to select the areas that affect the company’s “bottom line” the most and concentrate on those, using them as benchmarks.
Now both the CEO as well as the CFO have the job of watching if those selected benchmarks move upwardly or down. CFO careers are often carried out by CPAs, but not necessarily so. Often the process-based tracking mechanisms are put into place by the CEO, but it is the CFO who is responsible for the actual tracking. Thus, at times CFO jobs entail more computer work than just working with numbers. Often a CFO career entails less accounting and perhaps a vast experience in a particular field.
In order to prioritize the measurements, at times it is best to have tests, in the order of customer surveys at times. Such surveys are often conducted by email today, but the tried and proven methods include mail, and telephone surveys. It has often been said that when you receive a complaint in your company about anything, you should multiply that complaint by 10 to reflect how many people actually are complaining and what the reflection may be on your business. This number was not arbitrarily chosen, but rather it has been proven that if you feel cheated by a company, for example, you will tell at least 10 people about it.
At times a CEO may turn to internal service level agreements (SLAs). These are usually instituted among teams or departments. Assume for example that the CEO wishes to increase the bottom line, but finds out that the sales staff often has to wait for over a week for the product to be made. By having the production staff agree to produce the merchandise in four days, you can have the sales staff deliver the product quicker to the purchasers of the product. This will increase the bottom line tremendously.
Often when SLAs are used as in the example above, there needs to be some incentive. Of course the best incentives have always been money, thus often the CEO and the CFO will work out an incentive plan between them and then present it to the employees.
