Vision33 Spotlight on Chief Financial Officer, Mark Weighall: DRIVING CAREER & BUSINESS GROWTH WITH SAP BUSINESS ONE

Transcription

1 Vision33 Spotlight on Chief Financial Officer, : DRIVING CAREER & BUSINESS GROWTH WITH SAP BUSINESS ONE

2 Education: California State University Bakersfield, CA Masters of Business Administration ERP Solution of choice: SAP Business One Career Background: Adjunct Professor, Financial analyst, Divisional Controller, CFO Specialties Certified Financial Manager Certified Management Accountant Certified Public Accountant Certified in Production and Inventory Management Masters of Business Administration Career Highlights Transformed the operations of 3 organizations with SAP Business One including: o Pandol Brothers o Vintage Nurseries o IES Engineering Adapted SAP Business One to meet the needs of businesses in diverse industries Developed executive level reporting platform using SAP Business One to guide strategic decision making Enhanced his role as a financial manager with the advanced reporting capabilities of SAP Business One Promoted from Controller to Chief Financial Officer Background Chief Financial Officer Profile: MARK WEIGHALL s career in finance began ten years ago. It is his belief that finance is the foundation by which businesses function, communicate, and measure performance. Underlying his philosophy is a professional background in successfully managing the financial operations of organizations that span diverse industries. With experience in operations, planning, and supply chain, Mr. Weighall understands how businesses operate and measure their resources and managerial effectiveness. Currently excelling in his role as CFO, Mr. Weighall sees problems and solutions beyond a single area of business and has worked with many enterprises that have benefited from the adoption of SAP Business One. INTRODUCTION Today s modern Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a technology evangelist; one who recognizes the impact that data-based insight can have on enterprise strategy and growth. The adoption of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has empowered financial managers to increase the value that finance contributes to an enterprise. Increasingly, senior managers rely on the CFO to help identify emerging markets, growth opportunities, and new areas for investment. Whereas the traditional CFO s focus used to be on controlling costs and monitoring a company s cash flows, today s technology-enabled CFO is a driver of corporate strategy. With SAP Business One, the choice ERP solution of the modern CFO, all critical business data is captured for visibility into business performance. Together, with the expertise of SAP gold channel partner, Vision33, the CFO is able to leverage sophisticated real-time analytics tailored to meet the specific requirements of any industry. As a result, today s ambitious CFOs now have even greater career opportunities to take the lead in business transformation; guiding senior management s growth agenda and influencing corporate decision making. FROM TACTICIAN TO FINANCIAL STRATEGIST Throughout his career,, the Chief Financial Officer at IES Engineering (IES), has leveraged the SAP Business One application to enhance his role as a financial manager. It is no coincidence that each organization he has worked with supported their operations with marketleading SAP Business One. After all, Mr. Weighall had championed the adoption of the application each time. Looking back on Mr. Weighall s successful career also reveals his longstanding relationship with SAP gold channel partner Vision33. The value of the successful combination of implementation partner and ERP solution can be summarized as follows: occupying the position of controller earlier in his career, SAP Business One provided him with access to data analytics that provide insight into a business financial health. As Mr. Weighall transitioned from Controller to CFO and thus, from tactician to strategist, Vision33 ERP consultants provided insight into how the application could be used to support both his employers business growth and his career growth. By examining Mr. Weighall s career path, it is clear that SAP Business One has the ability to empower the modern financial manager. The application offers tools that not only provide value to businesses but also benefits their career by supporting their expanded role and responsibilities within an organization. THE FINANCIAL MANAGER CAREER PATH Like Mr. Weighall, many financial managers begin their careers in finance as analysts. Depending on their area of expertise and industry served, many will move up to the position of Controller though only the most dedicated are promoted to the role of CFO. Regardless of what stage or position someone occupies, being able to deliver sound financial advice based on accurate and timely business information plays a crucial role in navigating one s career path and impacting the financial health of an organization. Today, modern financial managers use in-depth data analytics to maximize the impact of business data on management s decision making and help guide the business. For Mr. Weighall, the role of CFO, marked the transition from a tactician to financial strategist two related roles that are both enhanced by SAP Business One. Tracing back to his early days as a Controller demonstrates how SAP Business One can support a successful career in finance from a Controller all the way to the top as a CFO. 2

3 THE RIGHT TOOL FOR FINANCIAL MANAGERS The Role of a Controller Controllers direct the preparation of financial reports that summarize and forecast the organization s financial position, such as income statements, balance sheets, and analyses of future earnings or expenses. Controllers also are in charge of preparing special reports required by governmental agencies that regulate businesses. Often, Controllers oversee the accounting, audit, and budget departments of their organization. The Role of a Chief Financial Officer CFO s direct the organization s budget to meet its financial goals. They oversee the investment of funds and carry out strategies to raise capital to support the firm s expansion. They also develop financial plans for mergers. SAP Business One is Mr. Weighall s application of choice when it comes to financial management. The integrated ERP solution provides a complete set of tools to help manage and streamline an enterprise s financial operation. For the financial manager, SAP Business One offers the ability to conduct banking activities including processing bank statements and payments, as well as reconciling accounts. It is also possible to manage cash flows, track budgets, and compare actual versus planned to see where business stands at a moment s notice. By integrating financial operations in real-time with other business processes, such as purchasing and sales, financial managers can speed transactions and improve visibility into cash flow. The application provides comprehensive accounting and financial functionality including: Accounting Automatically handle all key accounting processes, such as journal entries, accounts receivable, and accounts payable Controlling Accurately manage cash flow track fixed assets, control budgets, and monitor project costs Banking and reconciliation Quickly process reconciliations, bank statements, and payments by various methods including checks, cash, and bank transfer Financial reporting and analysis Create standard or customized reports from real-time data for business planning and audit reviews Designed for small to midsized enterprises (SMEs), the SAP Business One application provides comprehensive support for each functional business area; integrating each in a single application. This is important for financial managers that provide strategic level analysis to senior management. The highly adaptable solution is also capable of customizations to better map to the industry specific needs of the organizations that adopt it. SAP Business One can be understood as a business systems foundation; Vision33 works with each customer s senior managers to ensure that their objectives for ERP implementation are met through world class implementation and customizations. This ensures that the company can maximize the impact of technology on its organization. For the CFO, the benefit of adopting SAP Business One is easily understood; it enhances their role as a financial manager. With advanced data analytics and reporting, financial managers provide more value to their organization by guiding management s strategic decision making. ALIGNING CAREER GROWTH WITH SAP BUSINESS ONE SAP Business One offers a scalable solution that provides financial managers with the ability to access a deeper level of analysis necessary to support increasingly more strategic roles throughout their career. Without it, a financial manager is left to guide critical business decisions based on limited information. Throughout Mr. Weighall s career, he was able to leverage the application to take advantage of SAP Business One s features to deliver value to the company by providing insight into the organization s financial health. 3

4 CHOOSING A MODERN FINANCIAL SOLUTION TO UNDERSTAND CHANGING MARKET TRENDS With the old software it would have taken months if I could have provided it at all. With SAP Business One, I handed it to him in less than 10 minutes. Tracing back Mr. Weighall s professional career to 2006 reveals the role that SAP Business One played while he occupied the role of Controller at Vintage Nurseries. As North America s largest grapevine nursery, the company provides grapevines to commercial grape growers in the US. Founded two decades ago, the company has evolved into a thriving business with revenues exceeding $10 million. Back then, the company was experiencing a shift in its customer base and was growing. Once hired, Mr. Weighall sought to provide insight into the change in customer base by providing management with real-time access to customer data to support the business direction. Mr. Weighall saw firsthand how the existing business processes and information technology had become insufficient to support current and future needs. We had problems with the way the Inventory Manager was interacting with our accounting system, there were issues with data integrity. Then, our accounting system went down for a month and we couldn t get any information, Mr. Weighall recounts. As a Controller, this presented challenges to consistently and effectively provide financial analysis to management. After thoroughly searching the marketplace, the company decided on SAP Business One and implementation partner Vision33; a great paring for the grapevine nursery since the solution was cost effective and Vision33 certified consultants had the expertise needed to implement a technical solution to what was fundamentally an agricultural business. Within three short months of implementation, SAP Business One afforded Mr. Weighall more time to manage his financials instead of creating reports. As a controller, SAP Business One enhanced his role by reducing reporting time and simultaneously empowering management with the information that they needed to plan for the shift in customer base. One of the managers walked into my office and asked me for a specific report, recalls Mr. Weighall. With the old software it would have taken months if I could have provided it at all. With SAP Business One, I handed it to him in less than 10 minutes. With the software in place, Mr. Weighall was able to focus on helping guide the business and keep it moving forward. In just a few short years, the company achieved over $25 million in sales and more recently sold to a large company with a valuation of $80 million. With the help of Vision33, Mr. Weighall saw firsthand how well SAP Business One was able to meet the specific requirement of Vintage Nurseries. As his career continued to develop, he realized that the application could be adapted to other businesses to take advantage of new opportunities in other industries. 4

5 ADAPTING SAP BUSINESS ONE TO DELIVER VALUE TO OTHER INDUSTRIES With SAP Business One, management could really see the outcome of their efforts in real-time to improve their long-term decision making. It really changed their way of thinking; making them more progressive than other companies. Later in his career, new opportunities led Mr. Weighall to spend several years working as a Divisional Controller for the farm management company, Pandol Brothers. Originally established in Delano, California during the 1940 s, the Pandol Brothers organization began as a grower and seller of premium table grapes. As the family business grew over the course of several decades, it expanded its service offering to include marketing, shipping, and later importing and exporting services. With a more complex business structure, the company required more insight into its business processes to ensure profitability. As the company s Divisional Controller, Mr. Weighall faced several challenges in delivering value to the company: for one, some farmers are used to investing capital in farming equipment and machinery whose function is easily understood in the short term. Gaining insight into the business profitability would require going against the grain; convincing the company to commit resources to a softwarebased business solution. Without an ERP application, like SAP Business One, Mr. Weighall would not be able to successfully provide in-depth analysis of Pandol Brothers projected earnings or expenses. The company also used a completely different nomenclature and business structure when compared to other industry segments and as a result, their profitability scale was measured very differently. Looking at the per acre basis for profitability meant that the business would require a solution tailored specifically to their company and allow for reporting flexibility for Mr. Weighall to perform his duties as a Divisional Controller. From Mr. Weighall s perspective as a Divisional Controller, the application needed to support the communication of information quickly and easily. When the business owners needed answers to specific questions, the application provided the ability to generate a customized report that provides the answers in real time. When Mr. Weighall set out to make a case for the adoption of an ERP solution, he knew that the chosen solution would have to provide a more sophisticated system than Pandol s small business accounting software package. Additionally, the solution would also need to be able to perform more than accounting for crops. It would also require the flexibility to support other facets of their business including: referral-based lead incentives, reference selling, and the ability to track and manage 18 different companies in their supply chain. After evaluating several alternatives, he came back to his long-term ERP solution of choice, SAP Business One and long-term partner implementation partner, Vision33. After all, SAP Business One is best thought of as a platform upon which experienced ERP consultants can build a business solution tailored to even the most unconventional business structures. After I showed them what we could do with some of SAP Business One reporting tools, management went from planning one crop a season to ten crops projected into a ten year model, fed by business data collected in real-time recalls Mr. Weighall. With SAP Business One, management could really see the outcome of their efforts in real-time to improve their long-term decision making. It really changed their way of thinking; making them more progressive than other companies. Having demonstrated the value of the application to management, all other alternatives were put out to pasture. Having realized that no other system could provide the flexibility needed for their farming operation; management was now on board. For his role at Pandol Brothers, Mr. Weighall was now able to provide financial reports in just under a few minutes, increasing the value-added services he was able to deliver to the company as a Divisonal Controller. 5

6 A CHAMPION OF CHANGE AT IES ENGINEERING With SAP Business One, I had developed a reporting platform at the executive level that I utilize daily, to look at high level finance numbers, cash flow numbers, projects, and resources. Wanting to continue moving forward in his career in finance, Mr. Weighall explored opportunities in the engineering services industry, where companies were seeing growth in the oil and gas industry. Mr. Weighall began working at IES Engineering (IES), taking on the role of Controller. Headquartered in Bakersfield, California, IES provides turnkey solutions for high growth industries with integrated design, procurement, and construction. The company combines technical expertise with service and needed a way to leverage business information to deliver projects on time and within budget, while supporting strategic business planning and decision making. As the company outgrew its legacy business software, management realized that there were better solutions on the market. IES commitment to continuous process improvement and innovation was a boon to Mr. Weighall s case for adopting SAP Business one as the company s ERP solution. After evaluating six other applications, the management team decided on SAP Business One. Not only was it the most cost effective choice, but Mr. Weighall was confident that it had what it took to support the business growing demand for real time information. Thanks to his own ambitious drive and ability to deliver effective financial insight to a company that manages hundreds of projects for multiple clients across multiple industries, Mr. Weighall was promoted to Chief Financial Officer in the fall of a role that he enjoys. In his own words the CFO s role is to determine the longterm implications of financial data and direct the company growth in the right direction based upon that information. In just a few short years, Mr. Weighall had moved to a senior role where he had more influence over the businesses direction. With SAP Business One, I had developed a reporting platform at the executive level that I utilize daily, to look at high level finance numbers, cash flow numbers, projects, and resources, described Mr. Weighall. The platform also provided the scalability to manage more concurrent projects; reducing the amount of time, resources, and staff needed to manage them efficiently. From a client perspective, IES has also become more competitive since they can offer more flexibility in their project reporting. Beyond the new business insight, Mr. Weighall was able to open up management to information not solely focused on project success but also the company s overall profitability through deeper analysis provided by SAP Business One. As a financial manager, I can now run queries, or have my implementation partner, Vision33, write a query for me to pull data and information quicker to enhance the CFO role, elaborated Mr. Weighall. 6

7 TAKING THE NEXT STEPS IN THE FINANCIAL CAREER PATH As a financial manager, I can now run queries, or have an implementation partner write a query for me to pull data and information quicker to enhance the CFO role to make relevant and timely strategic business decisions. Always eager for new opportunities, Mr. Weighall sees SAP Business One along with Vision33 as a winning combination to support career development and provide transparent informational access for his employer. Summarizing the value of the application over the last decade to be a financial manager without a system like SAP Business One, is a challenge. SAP Business One has enhanced my roles at each company I have worked. I worked for another company that implemented a different ERP solution, however, it just wasn t conducive to access the information I needed as a financial manager. For Mr. Weighall, financial management is enhanced by access to business information that is accurate, timely, and in depth. Without it, one s career growth may be stunted in a business landscape where modern CFOs are empowering businesses longterm growth through long-term Planning. Through examining Mr. Weighall s career path, it is possible to see the role that the application has in supporting both the business operations and the success of the financial manager. SAP Business One is a suitable solution for both financial managers and the companies that they work for since it provides the flexibility to be tailored to any industry and offers financial managers the ability to access the information that they need to be effective in their role. Moving forward, ERP applications such as SAP Business One provide many opportunities to deliver new insights to businesses through experienced financial managers with the right tool that will growth with them throughout their careers. VISION33, DEDICATED SAP BUSINESS ONE PARTNER Vision33, Inc. is a leading enterprise resources management (ERP) solutions provider, focused on providing SAP solutions to growing small to midsized enterprises (SMEs) and subsidiaries of large enterprises. As the largest SAP Business One partner in North America, Vision33 has more than 500 customers and offices from coast to coast, providing the right balance of software, and world-class consulting and support services for customers to better manage and grow their business. CONTACT INFORMATION To learn more about how SAP Business One can enhance your role as a financial manager, connect with a Vision33 consultant at contact@vision33.com. Vision33 Inc. 6 Hughes, Suite #220 Irvine, CA Tel: (949) Vision33, the Vision33 brandmark, and any other product or service names or slogans contained in this document are property of Vision33, and their respective owners, and may not be copied, imitated or used, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of Vision33, Inc. SAP Business One is a registered trademark of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. SAP is a registered trademark of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. 7