Unifying Your Tech Stack to Unlock Sustainable Growth

Transcript

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Now I would like you to please join me in welcoming Chad Wonderling, the CFO of Zone & Company.

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Chad is responsible for all of the company's financial functions, including accounting, tax, treasury, financial planning, analysis, and operations.  Before Zone, he spent nearly six years at SalesLoft, serving in multiple finance leadership roles, but most notably as the Chief Accounting Officer at SalesLoft.

He helped lead four acquisitions, raise over $300 million in debt and equity financing, and played an integral role in the sale of SalesLoft to Vista Equity Partners for 2.3 billion. Following some initial comments, Chad will be joined by Dan BigMan for some Q&A.

DAN BIGMAN: So Chad, Welcome back. I hope everybody had time to eat and then walk off what they ate a little bit.

Um, Chad, before we even get going here, uh, tell us a little bit about Zone. Um, what do you do? How big are ya? Uh, what's, what's the plan? Just give us asense of what the company's about.

CHAD WONDERLING: Yep. Good afternoon, everybody. Great to be here. So, um, Zone & Company. So our mission is to unleash and unlock the potential that the finance and accounting function plays within the business and the impact that the accounting and finance function has in the business.

So what we do is we provide solutions that are based within NetSuite for the accounting and finance function to basically do their job better and to focus on value creation activities by partnering with the business.

So, everyone here obviously is pretty much, there's a lot of focus on profitability and efficiency, obviously growth. Nobody doesn't want to grow, but there's been a lot of focus on profitability and efficiency lately.

DB: Um, what are some of the behaviors, some of the workflows, some of the things that, you know, when you look out at bringing technology into the business, what are we trying to do when we're bringing technology into the business?

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We shared so much about AI, about other tech. Talk to us a little bit about, you know, maybe what we should be aiming for and, and what we're aiming for when it comes to putting more tech in the business, in the finance function.

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CW: Yeah. So first of all, I think everybody here has made some very difficult decisions over the last two to three years as we've had to become more efficient and lead efficiency and productivity within our business.

And as I think about what we've gone through as finance leaders over the last two to three years, when it comes to driving efficiency and putting more emphasis maybe on profitability, I think of it in kind of three layers.

One is, let's, let's rationalize all of our costs, okay. Where we've had to make some hard sort of incremental decisions that are not sustainable with costing things out of the business. I think secondly, and none of these are mutually exclusive.

Secondly is we've put probably more of an emphasis as the cost of capital has increased.We've put more of an emphasis on working capital, cash conversion, lengthening DPOs, reducing DSOs, which are all great, independent of the macro environment.

But I think the third piece, which we are also at the tip of the spear on in many ways within our business is how can we create strategic initiatives that, that drive efficiency within our business and within our product offering.

Okay. In many ways and in many facets, and some of that might be through product-led growth, product innovation, and I think from our seat of the CFO is, I think when we combine two and three, okay, so working capital management, cash conversion, and then the third element of a strategic initiative.

I think that there's a big opportunity, and I've experienced this myself, I've had the great fortune to do that, as we think within a business about the lead all the way top of the funnel through cash, there's a big opportunity for us to drive efficiency and make that a competitive advantage for our company as we continue to drive not only just profits, but also wanna place a priority ingrowth.

DB: And we, we can, we'll talk in a little more depth about some of the strategies. I just wanna ask the folks over the AV if you could just make sure the clock is running. 'cause we're, we haven't started it yet. And I don't wanna, I don't, I don't wanna have poor Chad up here for four and a half hours without, you know, asking him yet.

Another thing and another thing, um, you know, so often, uh, when we talk about tech these days, it has been framed in terms of cost cutting. Obviously that introduces a fair amount of anxiety, but also in some ways that, you know, when we've talked a little bit, that's like the least interesting thing you can do with the tech, right?

Like that automating the, the job that's there.Help us dream a little bigger. See it through your eyes a little bit. As someone who works with this all the time, what can we be aspiring to with technology these days? What can we do that maybe we couldn't even think about before? And, you know, what will we be able to do Yeah. Coming forward? Yeah. Help us think a little bigger about technology in our place.

CW: No, that's, that's a, um, that's a very, that's a very loaded question. I I think it's, it's, it's about we can never layer on technology to create a process.

SoI think as leaders within the business, we've gotta define the processes and it all starts with the processes. But I think what the technology can do is unlock, okay, unlock, solve problems that can allow our team.

We talked, we talked earlier this morning about finance being master planners in the business. I love that phrase. I hadn't heard that before. That makes a ton of sense. Is it can, the technology can unlock, um, to allow folks to go drive value within the business.

AndI think as we think about the lead to cash process specifically, um, just because I've, I've, I've seen it before and I've felt it and I've seen customers experience it as well, is that, is the, that is one of the highest risk workflows within the business.

And, and as and as we think in its entirety from top of the funnel in marketing all the way through converting into cash, I think there's so much opportunity for finance to be a leader, to partner with the go to market function, to then be flexible enough and agile enough to drive efficiency and working capital and cash flows.

DB: And we'll, we'll, we will go, as I said, we'll go deeper into that. But one of the things that I hear so much when I talk to CFOs, and we actually have a whole column that, that Vince does that um, that is focused on this, is, you know, um, just getting it going.

We hear so often that there are a lot of promises that vendors make and then the stuff shows up and it, it's very difficult. You say that the place to start with all of this is with people, right?

So what does that mean exactly? When, when I hear from you, like start, you know, technology starts with the people, what are you, what are you talking about?

CW: Yeah, So I'd say first of all is with, within our space, first of all, selling to the CFO is a very hot space right now. It's, it's a, it's, it's crowded. There's a lot of solutions I get, I've experienced decision fatigue when I think about how we piece it all together, how we piece all these solutions together because it's a big decision. And if you pull one thing out, then it could all break. And you just have to be very careful.

ButI think as we think about the technology, Dan says, Dan, you say people, people are so critical in this because it's the people that help define the process. And it's the process that we can overlay the technology on top of. So I always start with, of course, in the threes, kind of the three prongs or the three legged stool. People process technology, start with process and allow the people to define the process, cross-functionally.

And, and you've got, with the people, it's so critical to have the competencies and capabilities to help us take us to the future.

DB: And, and so much of this is making sure that they don't spit the bit right at the beginning.  'cause there can be, you know, within our shops, there can be a lot of hesitancy to change. And maybe we can talk little bit about, you know, some of the behaviors we want to help people with.

But even before we get to that, When we're scoping and evaluating tech, it can be kind of tricky. Give us some pro tips here when you're bringing stuff into your own shop, when you're evaluating, you know, what are you asking?

Maybe you can help us make our process a little savvier. What are some better questions to be asking when we're thinking about adding things into our tech stack?

CW: Yeah, I think first, before I get into, before I get into actual solutions, because the getting into the solutions can be overwhelming and there can be a lot of similarities among the offerings.

What I like to think about is I like to think about one, start with the workflows. Like what are the key workflows within our business? I use one earlier, which is lead to cash. That might seem really big, but let's, then let's just, let's shorten it down and let's talk about order to cash.

If we take that as an example, Yep. So if we think about the lead, if we think about the, if we think about the lead to cash process. So if we think about the lead to cash process, and we could shorten it down just to be, order to cash in this specific example, is I wanna minimize risk. Okay. And I wanna keep our people as, as reasonably as possible within the same few systems Okay. To drive, to drive efficiencies.

And so as I think about one, starting with the overall workflow, okay, what are some key considerations is, I mean, very simply as I think about the workflow, and I think about the tools and how to piece the puzzle together with the fewest number of pieces, ideally, is I wanna learn from other people's experience.

That might seem very trivial and, um, very, um, obvious. But I think if learning from other people's experience, talking to other customers of these solutions, understanding their use case, but then also think upstream as well.

When I, when we, when we, uh, considered technology and when, when we did it at SalesLoft and even at Zone is, I wanna talk to partners that are also involved within the business that might be impacted by that.

DB: So you're talking, you're, so you're saying like you really do need to bring together, and we'll get again, deeper into this, but like in an, if you're gonna play it in an interdisciplinary way across the business, you really need to start bringing those people into the room.

So what do you do? Are you doing like, you know, let's define the work. What are the jobs to be done? Like, what is, when you've done this, give us a tip about like how do you start that process rolling? 'cause it is so important when you're actually looking at what you're gonna buy, what you're gonna license, what you might build, right?

CW: Yep. I think the, like the biggest, I I think probably 50% of the journey in this is defining the problem, or maybe even more than 50%, is let's define the problem.

What are we trying to solve? And then secondarily is also importantly is like, what outcome do we want? Um, I'll give you a specific example. Um, in a past life of mine, we had major invoicing issues to our customers, and we had to hire one and a one and a half headcount just to answer customer questions on invoicing.

That like, that was the outcome we needed to fix and we needed to get better with, we needed to create a better customer experience with our invoices. And that might seem, hmm, finance driving customer experience, um, on the invoicing side, that, that surely is a reality.

And so I think starting with defining the problem, what is the outcome that we want to drive to? What is it that we're trying to solve? What does success look like? And then we can begin laying out the requirements that we need and then begin our cross-functional partnership.

DB: And you go out, you work with a lot of clients, how often do you find when you go to engage that kind of field work has been done that that kind of foundation is in place? Or is, is it, you know, you show up and they're like, what you got?

CW: Yeah, usually it's something like this on the screen. It's either, it's, it's a lot of systems or processes that is kind of like a, a big bowl of spaghetti or it's very siloed in nature where each function is doing their own thing. Okay. And there's alack of, of, of, uh, of, streamlined, uh, interconnected processes with role clarity across functions.

DB: So does it just go a lot? So that's a great tip, right? So before you even get out there with the vendor, get your house in order, right? And that can seem pretty overwhelming. I mean, that can seem very overwhelming.

How many people's house is in order right now? Anyone? No one's house is in order. All right. American, American capitalism is doing great,

CW: But I, I would say this though, is, is, you know, don't allow perfection to slow down progress. AndI think awareness is the very first step to recovery.

And, and I think with us as finance leaders, our teams, we see everything at the end of the stream. And so if, if we can help the business define what good looks like, partner across the business, obviously allow others to see through communication, storytelling, see where some of the holes are and what some of the pain points are, I think that will also create a good level of awareness within the business.

DB: So what Else is a good hallmark of a good evaluation process that you've seen work well with clients that do this well? What are some of the, what are some of the good hallmarks of a good evaluation process? And where does this tend to go off the, we've all been in the car that goes off the, the rails with, you know, scoping and trying to figure out with the software and getting it in. But what do you see most typically with good and bad when, when you've worked with lots of clients?Yep.

CW: So I'd say, uh, a couple of these might be just repetition from earlier, but I think define the outcome and what good looks like. What do we try what do we want the end game to be? If it's invoicing, what do we want it to look like? Um, we've got to, we've got to build.

I think another thing with systems as well, and we all deal with this, so it's not unique to, to me whatsoever, is we've got to make decisions today that will set us up for the problems we're going to encounter two to three years from now. And I think that's what's critical.

So what that requires is that's going back to this morning, is the master planner, okay, we've gotta have the foresight and create optionality within the business.

Example might be is our go-to-market motion might change, our pricing might change. Um, how we charge our customers might change from subscription to usage based as an example.

And so there's an element of flexibility. How can we build that in or have that inherent within some of these solutions in the events that these things do change as we move forward. So those are some, those are some two.

DB: So it's not, it's not just you, you not just trying to replace an existing workflow. And that's kind of what we were trying to get at at the beginning is, yep, don't think about just replacing an existing workflow, but technology these days will, could enable entirely new business models.

You need to be able to build a foundation that could work with a business model that you haven't invented yet without having to rip the guts out of the company to make that happen. So, you know, when we're looking at that, what, how does that shape that process?

Is this brainstorming with a two by two, like people are sitting there with a whiteboard and all that. Like what's the right way to kind of dream bigger when you know within the organization as you're doing this kind of spec and help us out to future proof ourselves a little bit with what we're buying?

CW: Yeah, I think it's, it like always be on the front lines of like where the business is going. I think, I think the other thing is very, as a CFO is have strong relationships across the executive team and as I, as I educate my team and try to help develop them is, is be in with the business and help the business make decisions.

I think those are some key things as we try to future proof ourselves for the future, okay. To allow that flexibility in our pricing model or our go to market motion. And then it becomes about, from, from a tech standpoint is ongoing, I think to some tech failures are, we've got to, we're we're where the technology can fail is when we don't have those integrations into the other systems.

So billing tools might sound great of subscription usage based billing tool. That might sound great, more efficiency for the team, but guess what? It ain't gonna be great. We're gonna have a new problem on our hands if we don't adequately integrate that that into our CRM.

And so you start doing this, you start coming up with the, um, you know, kind of the, the spec for this thing. Um, you know, that can be difficult especially as, you know, later on as we get closer to integration.

DB: But what do you telegraph to the rest of the team? You know, who's in the room, who's not in the room? You know, how do you develop a culture that's that's good with doing this kind of, you know, examination and constant examination of what's going on in the tech stack?

CW: Yep. Yep. So it's, it's really about knowing, knowing what good looks like and, and it's, it's about listening, communicating and involving people that can understand and anticipate to some of the things that we did this morning and activities is anticipating what the needs are of the other functions where there is the interconnected tissue that is very, that is very important.

So folks in the room, if I'm thinking about, if we're thinking about, um, digitizing, revamping our, uh, order to cash process, we need sales in the room, most definitely. We need sales ops in the room, we need our CRM expert in the room. Do, do we need our CRO?

Yes. I want our CRO involved. Obviously we, we've got folks in finance, we've gotta think about people in marketing, how we capture the, the data on the front end. So plenty of folks that are definitely in the room as part of that, that um, are, are kind of helping lay the tracks.

DB: And this is so key because anyone who doesn't feel like they're involved at the beginning is likely to become a pain in the butt somewhere along the way, right? There may be a resentment there, there may be some kind of, you know, feeling that like, well they didn't ask me, I'm gonna cross my arms and pout about this. You know, that that's the kind of stuff happens all the time.

What else do we need to do to make sure that everybody, 'cause technology shifts are culture shifts, so what else do we need to do as we're kind of scoping this out and looking at making a change to bring the people along? Anything else that are kind of key to dos?

CW: I, I think just a couple things there and then we'll get into some more technical things is, is of course there is an element of change management that we can't under estimate here too.

And I think having it be, um, having it, having it come down to a, a common mission or common outcome, whether that's the customer, whether that's, um, growth that we're trying to drive, uh, a better experience for maybe our end customer, internal customers create that common sort of glue that brings us all together.

So then I think, I think some other tech considerations are, this can seem very daunting when we think about, um, when we think about, when we think about just piecing it all together and implementing something that is so critical within a lead to cash process.

And I think what's, what's critically important in this is, and I, and I mentioned it earlier, is as we're thinking about new technology, I wanna learn from customers, but I also wanna learn from the experience of others. So I think having the right partners and selecting the right partners is very critical as well 'cause we're not gonna know everything ourselves. Okay.

But this is obviously going to be an investment. Obviously our service provider, the, the, the solution software provider is going to be first and foremost, and then other partners, whether that's implementation partners, whether that's other customers that use this solution as well.

It's critically important to learn from other people's experiences and share the knowledge.

DB: And this, this slide also talks to something I wanted to ask you about, which is selling something internally. Like you can be the CFO, you can be excited, you can know that this really will do a lot of stuff, but some of this is just dead, not sexy, right? No. Like I'm going to the CEO who's all growth minded and like, we're gonna do this, that, and we, we launch a new sales force in Asia and all these things that feel like growth and you're like, Hey, but we're gonna, you know, we're gonna rip up the guts of the, the, you know, the the lead to cash process. You know, super.

Give us some tips about selling that internally. Yeah, right. Selling some of the things that we need that we know the, the business needs. But that can be kind of a tough sell.

CW: Yeah. I mean, we're not gonna get applauded for having, um, an invoicing system that actually does what it's supposed to do. I mean, that's, that's just taken for granted, that's expected of us. But I think, I think here's, here's, here's the, I think a key thing is anytime you are investing and building for the future, which is what we're doing when we layer technology over our processes, is I think what's super critical is just to remember for everybody is it is an investment.

And I think we all have to understand, you know, what is that north star that we're going to? And then how is it gonna make our lives better? Whether that's like in the lead to cash process, we can, we can you said our DSO, we can reduce our contracting time to billing time and how do we sell it internally obviously to to, to the sales team, um, you know, what it would be like and what it would mean for customer experience.

And we're gonna probably have to, we're gonna need some help and assistance from it as well. So I think getting the team around what is the thesis of the why, what is the why? And as, and this goes to building processes for anything and everything we do within the businesses as we enable the business and as we get their support and involvement. I think understanding that bigger why is Critical.

DB: And I think, you know, we've talked before, but with the CEO showing how this is about growth, that it may seem like this is about maintenance, but it's really like if you can't change the business model without ripping the guts outta the system, again, that's gonna slow the business later on.

Anything in the tech stack that it is actually about growth to get the right fundamentals in place.

CW: And about scalability as well. It's about growth and scalability and putting in the infrastructure that we can, we can do more with the same level of resourcing and resources that we have today.

DB: So you're really big on the example, you know, of, of lead to cash. Why is this, in your mind, your thesis is, if you're gonna do one thing, this is the one thing to do. So why, why is this in your mind, so important to the business?

CW: Yeah, I think it's, we all care about revenue, um, driving top line, but we also know as finance leaders is this is where there's the most risk, operational risk, data risk, financial risk, and also dependencies on other systems, our CRM.

And so if it's like, if we were to get one thing right, one thing, right, that, that from a, from a tech stack standpoint, this would be the one thing that would have the highest impact. And that can also impact cash flows as well at the end of the day while facilitating growth.

DB: And that's why also this is one of the biggest triggers for a lot of fear in the organization because, you know, essentially what you're talking about is modernizing how we make money, right? And that touches everybody all over the place. And because it's really the aorta of the whole company, you want to be very careful around it and everyone's gonna be kind of sensitive.

So, you know, because this can be such a big deal and it can start in ca impacting a lot of systems you just mentioned the CRM, but this can also be, you know, impacting everything from how you know the salespeople. When they get it recognized, when they get their commission check. All kinds of things come up along the way.

Help us overcome that fear in the organization when we're gonna do something that can feel this radical about walking it through and getting this, getting more buy-in. For this particular thing with, with, with lead to cash.

CW: And, and I'll take, and I'll take you back and tell you a short story. So when I got to one of my prior companies, I saw that our DSO was increasing and cash collections were decreasing. And I knew we had a problem. I didn't know what exactly the problem was, but I knew we had a problem.

And, um, what the, what the controller would come and tell me was we needed more, we needed more billing people. And so I knew that that, that more people was not necessarily necessarily the solution.

DB: It's a solution you can have. It is gigantic army.

CW: It's, it's a solution people Like, But, but it's, it wasn't definitely the, the sustainable solution.So I think with an increasing DSO falling collections, what it turned out is we didn't have the proper integration between our CRM and our ERP. So things were stuck, but also our invoicing was awful. Our invoicing was absolutely terrible.

So I knew that at that point in time, after kind of quantifying the problem that there was, and that's a drastic, that's like a very obvious problem where it's staring us right in the face. But I knew that the inaction would lead to more cost and, and be more detrimental than making the hard decision, getting the resources and making the investment to drive for better in progress and in solving this problem.

So, point there being is while, while we needed to do something, the alarm was sounding in some particular cases, whether it's knowing where the business is going because we're master planners positioning ourselves for scale and facilitating the business as we do that will tell us that inaction can be worse than making that investment.

DB: So how do we start with the, you know, looking at the integration planning with all of the other parts of the business. 'cause if we are gonna, you know, this comes down way more than just like getting the right APIs working, right?

Like when you start to pull at this particular thread, lots of other things can start to be impacted and it can start to show, it's almost like doing an audit internally, right? You're gonna start to showcase places where the, the CRM isn't so awesome, right? Places where like, you know, the AP system that you had from five years ago, maybe not like the one you need anymore. And it can start to compound, I think.

I think you have a, you have a slide here. So talk about getting us ready to start doing that. The, what's the foundational work we need to do technically to start getting all this stuff to work together? Like it's,

CW: Yeah, I think the very first step is we can, we can have a small group on our team to do it. It'd be a great learning experience for some of our people is just lay out the lead to cash process from the very beginning to the very end. And others understand all the touch points along the way. Who's involved, who touches what, what are their functions, what do they do? And really just map, map it all out.

DB: Is this like you get a room, like you set up a war room for this and like there's whiteboards and this is, this is the room where we're gonna understand this to nth degree and we're gonna work on that problem. Like what have you seen?

CW:Yeah, yeah, You can, you can do, you can do that. It's a combination things you can do that, you can lay it out or you can just trace transactions. Have a few folks just trace transactions all the way through top of the funnel to the CRM, all the way through to the ERP, how the revenue gets, gets recognized.

And then we're gonna see some, we're gonna see some holes, we're gonna find some holes. And um, whether it's come together as a leadership team, cross-functional team, asking the right questions, being very curious, I think will lead us to a place where we'll be able to find where the deficiencies are within our end-to-end process that then will suggest that we need to go find a Solution.

DB: And do you, do you often find that with folks that like this becomes kind of the, the, you know, as you said at the beginning, like the kind of tip of the spear to we need to do a little bit of our upgrade maybe to our sales force or this like you just start to actually get progress in a bunch of different places?

CW: Yeah, there can be a few different, there can be a few different trigger points in terms of like the forcing mechanism to go take, go, take action.

But I think it's, it's gotta be something that is driven and that is led by finance, but it's not just for finance, it's for the, it's for the greater good. So I think identifying where these, some of these deficiencies and where these holes are will definitely create the momentum to then unlock and, and be the light.

DB: And I have more questions, but if people do have questions in the audience, please just raise your hand.

I know tech got questions right up front right away while we wait again for the, the track meet that is getting you the microphone.

Um, when we start to do the switch over, how do we do the switch over? So what's the, you know, alright, we're on board, we're doing this as a group, we're gonna hold hands and jump.

So how does that actually go?

CW: Yep. So first we're gonna, we're gonna start with obviously our accounting team. Okay. When we do the switch over from, for example, sales orders to subscription records, um, it's gonna be one with the accounting team, but then also working, working very closely with the sales operations team.

And then we have to be very thoughtful as well, um, of our, uh, of our CRM and ourCPQ and the quoting system, um, there. And um, and, and that is like the most critical step within the integration process to go live is, is how we ingest within the ERP from the quoting System.

DB: And we can talk about the therapy group you have to have, but right before you turn this into how you actually bring money in the door. Question right there, Right? Um,

Question Asker 1: so we talked about little bit about the evaluation process. And my question, I'll phrase it like this, right? So imagine I am A CFO newly joined at a company say six months a year old. Uh, I understand where the problems are, but then there's this saying, right, that nobody gets fired to buy an IBM and let's look for anIBM of the space or give opportunity to new startups that are coming on the back of more promising tech.

But then there are just so many and everyone is saying the same thing, I'll bring all data vision and you know, AI to it. So how do you go about that process? So which are some things where CFOs can say that, hey, this is not ERP or payments life mission critical, so must buy IBM, but these are some spaces where I can give some opportunity. How do CFO should think about that?

CW: Yeah, so you're asking why would you invest in something that might not be that glamorous,

Question Asker 1: Right? And more specifically say, how do I choose, say, lead to cash, I have some problem, but then is lead to cash, I should go for an IBM or a new technology, or I should break it up between smaller things, not where I can take more.

CW: Yeah. Well I think it's, it's like six months on the job. We wanna be, I mean, first probably in our role among other things, a few other things, but I think from an infrastructural and a backbone standpoint, let's be sure that we have an ERP that supports us and that supports where we're going.

ButI think that's number one. And then the only reason why I say lead to cash is, um, that's where, that's where most of the risk is. I mean, cash is king. Cash drives our business. If we can't have an efficient, relatively streamlined clean process when it comes to lead to cash, then you know that that's gonna, that's gonna eventually be problematic.

And then that problem confessor and no one's gonna thank us for making that, right.That's gonna be assumed. But I think that'll be something that you and your team will certainly be proud of in two, three years down the road

Question Asker 2: Hi, uh, thank you so much. So we are evaluating our tech stack and you can go next door and talk to three people that wanna sell you AP that are all innovative and they all use ai. We don't know if they're actually using AI or they're literally going in the back and using [whatever]. So the question becomes one R-I-T-R-I-S group has finite time and we also have finite dollars as you said, Cash is King for implementing something new.

So where do you start and how do you know at which point to give up and go on to the next one because they all sound fantastic.

CW: No, I think that's, that's a great question. I mean, I, one of the tough, I laugh about this, but it's because one, I'm in the software space and there's a ton of, there's a ton of players as you referred that sell into the CFO is deciding what to buy, when to buy it and how to piece it together with the rest of your tech stack is just mental frustration even for me sometimes.

And so I think it's about, let's start first with our problem. So what is it that we're trying to solve? And, and then go and explore. And some of my rules of thumb there is like, I'm using the analogy of a puzzle is I want it to be as consolidated as possible.

Why? 'cause I don't want my team all over the place. I don't want 'em to, going from system to system that's more integrations, that's more integration risk. Um, soI want to fit the puzzle together, fewest number of pieces. And, and then I think it's like evaluating and being very intellectually honest with assessing your critical business workflows.

And maybe the biggest issue, and this was at a prior company of mine was, um, was procure to pay. That was our biggest issue. I could be okay with the lead to cash side, I was okay with that. But the biggest issue was procure to pay. And so that's where we spent our time evaluating tools and and technologies.

But then we first had to, had to define the process ourselves. So it's super, uh, context dependent. But I think also learning from defining the problem and learning from other people's experience I think is, is the one thing that I would suggest,

DB: And this is a tough one for CFOs. 'cause you, you're, you're almost automatically put in charge of this as like the point person product manager, project manager around this to lead this process.

Is the CFO actually the right person to lead this? Can this be deputized to somebody? Like why do the poor people in this room have to be burdened with this on top of everything else? Can't this be run some other way?

CW: Yeah, I think it's, I mean it's also about have really strong people, um, and really invest in your people. Hire the right people. That's the highest leverage thing we can do, obviously in our job as CFOs, but anything our leaders can do.

So their involvement, I think their leadership is obviously critical. So we can do more strategic things and um, and, and then really engage others, others internally as well. Um, whether it's projects managers, whether it's others in other functions and rally them around kind of as I mentioned earlier, you know, the the common good and what's in it for them.

DB: So, you know, when, when, you know, when we do the switch over, when we, when we actually get going with this part, where does it go wrong? What do we need to be watching out for here as we actually, we've adopted something new, we brought it in, we, we made our choice and we're now we're starting to go, sometimes this can get very catch 22 E and circular. Where do we start? Where does it go wrong?

Give us some tips about actually getting this going without the scope creep that, you know, this turns into a, you know, anyone who's dealt with ERP or whatever, it can go on and on and on.

Without you getting to what you were promised at the beginning. Give us some tips forgetting that going.

CW: So we've defined our problem. We've defined what success looks like. We have an outcome, we've defined all of our requirements. I think key things, just some, some things to flag, I would say from my experience is understand key integrations when one system is talking to another system. Okay. 'cause those are, those are supercritical.

I mean, that's where a lot of the value is right there. We've got to nail those. And I think as part of that, the other thing, and this is kind of, this is an example, it's pretty specific and can be kind of nuanced, but it's important is as part of that integration seek to really understand and have a view and an opinion on where you want certain calculations to be done.

Example is, um, do I want a calculation on a billable amount to be done in Salesforce or do I want that to come over and be calculated in NetSuite? My ERP? I think some of those very specific things as we go from system A to system B is supercritical and where things could go wrong and where there is that lack of integration. And that not anticipating that ahead of time.

DB: One question that we get a lot, you know, with with CFOs is, you know, do I map the software thatI'm now purchasing, leasing, whatever to my systems? Or do I really just need to change my workflow in the way everyone works to match the software I just bought? What's the, in your mind, what's the better path there?

You know, 'cause it, you can, you can see the case made both ways, but do I go along with what the vendor's prescribing and change the way I work? Or do I need to make sure that I'm making this bespoke to the way that I'm, I'm working right now to not disrupt my people.

CW: So I've always started with process, let's lay out the process and then as we all know, there's a ton of solutions out there, then we can go evaluate the solution.

So I think get the, get the technology that meets the process as opposed to creating a process that, that meets the technology. Because it's the, at the end of the day, it's like our processes have to be very specific to our business and to our case.

Okay. And yeah, there's a lot of commonalities among all of our processes. Um, but we want to layer on the technology that compliments the process rather than vice versa.

DB: And so, you know, um, where does this go wrong when you see people bringing this in the door and, you know, we talk about some of the integration issues, but what are some of the other places this goes wrong maybe with the people, with the, the training. There's, there's a lot that goes into getting something to deliver on that which was promised at the beginning. What else can go wrong here?

CW: Yeah, I think it's, I mean, anytime we buy, we as CFOs, when we buy technology and when we buy tools, so much is on us and our teams because we've got to define the requirements.

And it's hard because a lot of times this might be our first time implementing anERP or an equity management tool or whatever it might be. So a lot of it is onus, and I think it's where it can go wrong, is we've gotta have clean data. We've gotta work really hard to make sure that our data's clean.

And we've gotta define our processes as I just mentioned. And I think as part of that, of course the technology's not gonna do it for us. But then I think it's, it's really being thoughtful and proactive in defining for yourself, okay, what do we, what do we do not want to happen here? Or where could things go wrong?

And this is because this could be where you have a brainstorming group, um, around, you know, what could go wrong in the CRM that would not allow the data to move over to the ERP when integrated. And so I think being really thoughtful about what it is that that could go wrong. Um, you know, because then that will help you be proactive in taking action before it happens.

DB: Is this something, as the CEOs out in the, you know, audience are going forward to do, is this a place where people don't lean enough on the vendor? 'cause the vendor's, the expert, the vendor in theory has done hundreds of these.

And do people not ask you enough questions, ask your teams enough questions ahead of time, rather than just then it turns into like firefighting with the customer service people later? You could, how do, how do we, how do we use the vendor relationship better to get this done better?

CW: You can never ask enough questions to, whether it's the, whether it's the software seller, whether it's the implementation partner, if that is a different party. I mean, we've got to learn as leaders and our teams, we've got to learn from their experience and, and be just voraciously curious around asking those questions, what around what could go wrong? Because they've done it many times before.

And when I implemented, um, and revitalized at a prior company, our lead to cash process, I got a, I got a vendor that a service provider that did it nearly two dozen times the implementation within the last two years. And so we asked them questions and we defined what our needs were, but we really leaned on them to help be our river guides.

DB: And so I think to, to the woman in the front, your, to her question, like how do you evaluate which of these solutions sometimes it's not just the code, right? And it's not just the product, it's the people, it's the responsiveness, it's the, you know, kicking the tires on some of that so that you aren't alone in the process, right?

CW: Yeah. And it's, it's also, I think that that's a great point is, um, that I didn't specifically mention is, is really understand what the, what the service and implementation element is, you know, as part of evaluating the software.

And of course they're gonna make it seem very simple, but don't talk to the, don't talk to the AE or the account executive. Let's talk to somebody else, whether it's on the services side. That's one of my first questions when I talk to customer referrals, who implemented it? How did they do it? What were the biggest pain points? And really be curious on that front

Question Asker 3: Yeah, just, um, just wondering in terms of the, uh, did the focus or KPIs change kind of before and after your kind of lead to cash implementation and, you know, does that help kind of drive your forecast? Or like, do you pluck out kind of key drivers for your forecast based off that too?

So as you're mapping out your process from lead to cash. You know, how you a KPI or a metric for leads, did you assess that and then, you know, start to track that once you had that process well defined in the system? So did you like extract or just develop new KPIs based off just evaluating your process? Yeah.

CW: Thank And by the way, thank you for the example. Thank you for the question. So the answer is yes, andI'll give you an example, uh, from my own experiences.

You might remember I mentioned, um, so we had a subscription billing platform at a prior company wasn't working, was not ideal, not good customer experience. We fixed the integration from our CRM into our ERP and our KPIs were pretty, were pretty, were pretty plain, pretty simple. It was making sure that that, that, that there was a reconciliation between the CRM and, and the ERP.

But as we then really overhauled our entire quote to cash process under our new subscription billing tool that we then implemented is within a year what we were doing is we were measuring the days to bill from the time that the contract was closed.

That is something we could never do before, but that was an evolution and that told me as our, as our leader, like, we're getting a lot better and, and then our standards got higher and our expectations rose. And then guess what the result was, was was also a lower DSO as part of that.

DB: Talk a little bit about selling this, you know, to the CEO to some of the other folks. Again, they're often growth-minded. When you're talking about some of these metrics, what kind of dashboards can we expect coming out of this? What is kind of the state of the art around this that the CEO can expect to see? What kind of, you know, gains do they get from that visibility and lack of opacity into the, into what's going on?

CW: Yeah, I think from, at least from the CEO perspective, I would hope that all of our CEOs, uh, that we work for and work with and that we serve are gonna take this for granted. And this is gonna be an expectation, but kind of the way that I would frame it and have in my past is, is let's frame it up with respect to building for the future and scalability and supporting the business and staying ahead and, and, and how this will help support, for example, if we change our go to market motion, if we change our pricing, I think that flexibility and that optionality will be something that would appeal, I would hope to any CEO.

DB: Um, And and were there, were there other things in the deck you wanted to get to that you wanted to hit? What the time that we have left?

CW: I, I think, no, I think that's, I think we co we covered off on, on really the, um, on the biggest items. I think just in terms of, of of, of next steps. Um, you know, this is just one example of you asked me, Dan, like where do we start? What do we do? Here's our recommendation.

DB: Um, obviously technology is at the absolute core of what's going on in the finance function these days. It is transformation in the finance function, you know, what's your best guess on where this is all going in the next three to five years?

We hear so much about artificial intelligence these days. Just give us a sense to, you know, the question that the woman had, you know, where this is going, how we can tell what's real. Yeah, we've been doing this a while, you know, just give us a, give us some tips here.

CW: Obviously if I had the answer, I would, I would go be a founder and, and wouldn't be in the CFO seat if I had the absolute answer.

I mean, I think for us it's like, look, AI's been in our space for a while. It's just now we all think about it slightly differently. I think, I think in terms of the big shiny AI, I think, um, you know, we have, we have a lot to learn, um, on the finance side.

And so, you know, I'm, I'm certainly not, not going to pretend to to have the answers of the view, but I think, you know, you know, I'm continuing and I'masking our team to continue to stay curious and, um, how can we do things better and um, and with less. And then also I think at the same point in time, continue to learn from each other as leaders.

DB: And just any final thoughts going into 2025? Obviously there's just a lot of change, a lot of disruption, a lot of tech.

CW: Yeah. A I mean we've got a, we've got a big election that's just, you know, I think the reason why that matters is just the overall macro. I think a lot going on in the macro space. I think just some things that keep me up at night, not unique to me whatsoever, but that does in addition to, you know, how can we drive within our organization, a customer, uh, a culture of customer success. So the customer keeps, keeps, certainly keeps me up and thinking about that. And, and then just all around people development because I, I think as leaders, like that's at the core of everything we do. And then facilitating that master planning.

DB: Well Chad, I wanna thank you so much. That's the time we have appreciate the practical tips.

CW: Thank you very much.Appreciate it. Thank you.