In this episode, VP of Finance in SaaS, Carrie Gurowitz discusses the strategic advisory role of finance, how to scale a global organization, the implications of multiple entities from an M&A integration, the financial metrics to watch, and what to think about when you’re implementing systems and automation into your finance strategy.
In this episode, VP of Finance in SaaS, Carrie Gurowitz discusses the strategic advisory role of finance, how to scale a global organization, the implications of multiple entities from an M&A integration, the financial metrics to watch, and what to think about when you’re implementing systems and automation into your finance strategy.
Welcome to Finance to Futurist, a Sidetrade podcast series on how innovation data and AI are disrupting order-to-cash.
Natalie Silverman:Hi, this is Natalie Silverman for Sidetrade. Welcome to Finance to Futurist. On today's episode, we're discussing the strategic advisory role of finance, how to scale a global organization, the implications of multiple entities from an M&A integration, the financial metrics to watch and what to think about when you're implementing systems and automation into your finance strategy. Please welcome VP of Finance, Carrie Gurowitz. Good morning, Carrie, and thanks for sitting down for Finance to Futurist.
Carrie Gurowitz:Hi, Natalie. Good morning.
Natalie Silverman:Good morning. Thank you so much for joining. I'm excited to have you on the podcast.
Carrie Gurowitz:Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it.
Natalie Silverman:All right. Well, you're a finance expert. And I'd love to hear more about yourself and your background.
Carrie Gurowitz:Sure, where should I begin? So I went to Lehigh University back in the day. And I started my career off at Ernst and Young as an auditor, across multiple industries, got to feel a little bit of everything for media, entertainment, telecommunications, the finance world, and then I went to the private world and spent, you know, I have about 15 years experience. And I've spent that, again, across different industries, I think the little unique to me, I haven't kind of stayed in one area have been able to use my knowledge across many different areas from distribution, retail to the SaaS world, RegTech. And here I am.
Natalie Silverman:This is not your first rodeo. So you've really seen, you know, finance from a lot of different lenses, which I think is great. And on this podcast, you know, we focus a lot on challenges and pains and how to solve those. So the first question for you is, what are some of those top challenges that you're facing in your role as a VP of Finance today?
Carrie Gurowitz:Sure, I think more particularly, and recently, there's ever changing rules and laws from a tax perspective, cash governance perspective that you always have to keep up with, as they say, cash is king, and you have to manage your business, obviously, to your cash as well as to, you know, the governing rules and you know, statutory laws. And you know, a lot of areas where you need to focus is you're running your business, but then how do you also comply and make sure your cash is in the right place timely, and you're able to use it appropriately without, you know, the tax implications. You know, running international businesses, adds a lot more complications, and having to worry about different entities offers a lot of challenges. And then, you know, there's the day to day job of just making sure the operations are running from a finance perspective, cash right now is my biggest focus, and how do we get in the door? How do we get to the places we need it to be?
Natalie Silverman:But you bring a really good point up about being global. And I think that's another unique perspective that you bring is that you've worked across multiple countries, multiple continents, and like you said, multiple entities. And I know you've done a lot with M&A as well. So maybe you could just talk a little bit about what is your thought process? And what's the strategy there when again, you have to think about cash, like you said, coming in the door. But with all of these things in mind, when you're talking about running a global business?
Carrie Gurowitz:Yeah, I think ultimately, you have to take a step back and understand what's the overall strategy of the business? Where are the needs of the business from an operational perspective, and then you need to bring in the experts where necessary to understand the ROI of starting something in a new region, obviously, with inflation these days, and particularly in the US, and prices rising, you constantly want to think what other areas can you go that you can save some money? And can you explore different regions for different areas of the business that might make your business a little bit more profitable, and maybe get some unique new expertise? So you know, it's constantly, I think, a challenging question that you just have to reevaluate depending on the different needs of the business. You know, you also want to be careful, you don't open up in too many regions, because, you know, there are implications of having on the background from a finance perspective, from statutory audits to regulations, record keeping legal administration. So it's a fine balance of understanding, what are we going to get from opening up in a new region? And then how does that affect the rest of the business? And can we get some benefits out of it?
Natalie Silverman:You already stole my next question, because inflation right now is obviously top of mind for almost everyone. And I heard a statistic the other day, and we brought it up in an earlier podcast that the cost of doing business is going up 2% every 90 days. And that might be very low, to be honest. So how are you thinking about inflation? And how do companies protect their cash right now in this type of market climate?
Carrie Gurowitz:Yeah, I think that's an interesting question. If you have the perfect answer, please tell me now. But, you know, I think it's particularly in the business working for development business now. And most of our costs are people and when you think of people and we all here in the job market that there is today the salaries are increasing, people are demanding more and how do you keep up with that, and it's definitely challenging and trying to managing having your best employees, you know, we want to treat them well and do the best we can for them. But managing costs is tough. So you know, it's looking at the overall plan and making sure you can offer things that keep up with inflation, but not, you know, hurt the overall cost of the business. And where you find other areas where you can save and really go with a fine tooth comb of things that you don't necessarily need for the business to combat some of the inflation on the other side, I think it's also important, you know, spending a lot of time on if our business is getting inflation, obviously, our customers need to expect it as well, having those conversations and making sure we're reflecting price increases that are passing that on to the client, you know, they have to understand that it's a two way street, unfortunately. And you know, if the costs are on our end, we have to pass them on to them to help manage that.
Natalie Silverman:Yeah. But I think you're right, it is about the customer experience, too. And I think when you take a proactive approach, right to talk to clients and be more transparent with why, you know, the cost of doing business is going up, and obviously working with them on contracts. You know, sometimes that is the best approach and certainly can lead to a better customer experience, too.
Carrie Gurowitz:Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, no one wants to be surprised, just getting a new bill that's, you know, with a 20% increase in their costs. So always being upfront, being proactive about that. And hopefully, you know, people are very aware with the situation going on. And that, you know, nothing should be a surprise, obviously, there might be some negotiation behind it. But at this point, at least, it's somewhat expected in this environment.
Natalie Silverman:Tell me a little bit more, you know, with your diverse backgrounds, you know, how have you seen the finance organization evolve since you first started in the business?
Carrie Gurowitz:Sure. You know, I think we've had systems in place and ERP systems, but a lot of the analysis least when I began was a lot of Excel modeling. And quite frankly, there still is that, you know, there's more focus on how can we automate things, the SaaS world evolving, there's so many new SaaS software for finance, from analysis perspective that's out there that just has made my world so much easier. We currently use a SaaS platform that helps manages our contracts and all of our renewals as well as does our revenue accounting that ties into our ERP system, which is something I would have never seen or looked at probably 10 years ago. So it's just really cool to be able to focus on this automation a little bit more than when I started my career.
Natalie Silverman:I think that's a great segue, because my next question was going to be around data and technology and just how that fits into your strategic vision. Because, you know, I think sometimes automation automatically means to some people cost reduction and means, you know, could be a reduction in workforce. But that's not always the case. And like you said, bringing in technology and being able to leverage data can actually help enable your team to make them stronger.
Carrie Gurowitz:Sure, I don't think it's necessarily a cost reduction, as you said, from a headcount always perspective, more productive, I think it allows you to grow and scale the business, you're gonna always have, depending on the business, your core structure, FP&A team and AP manager, AR. And then once you establish that, depending on the business, these tools, and they then technology, I believe is what allows you to scale and not continue to add on heads, and being able to leverage that and really grow and scale the business. Once you have good processes in place, the right system allows you to you're doing m&a allows you to kind of tag on the existing new business and put it into the system and allows you to use that, you know, to continue to just add on to what you're doing. And ultimately, new technology that constantly comes out really allows you to support the rest of the business, I think better than ever before. Finance really needs to be the base of the rest of the business to help make decisions. And being able to slice and dice data quicker and easier doesn't necessarily get rid of people's job. It's just a tool for people to use. So we can help make decisions in other areas that will ultimately save costs in the business.
Natalie Silverman:And we always talk about how, again, technology enables you to maybe move away from some of those tactical activities, like you mentioned, and maybe the modeling you used to do in Excel that was very manual and time consuming. So it's helping you to, like you said to be more productive, more efficient, helping you to scale. But let me ask you this, because I've asked a lot of my guests recently about the idea of digital transformation, because you hear it a lot and it is kind of a jargony buzzword in the industry. But we are seeing more and more of it. And even you know here at side trade, we're talking to more clients that actually have a full department that's dedicated to finance transformation. What do you think? Is digital transformation just a buzzword in your day to day world? Or is it something that you're actually thinking about?
Carrie Gurowitz:No, it's definitely something that's thought about. You know, I think ultimately, it would be a mistake to not think about it, as I said, the focus and the importance of technology and the digital world in order to a expand and grow a business is important. I think keeping up to date of what different things that you can do. And what's out there is important 10 years ago, I know we kind of talked about, you know, how did things change, you know, simple things a month in close checklists is something kept manually. And now there's software that can integrate the ERP and make sure everyone's on the same page and can improve your close time to 10 days or five days or whatever it may be. And without keeping in the forefront of the digital world, in the digital transformation world, I think you can fall behind. I mean, I think you also have to be careful, you know, not every system needs to be plugged in, and it gets the same ROI. And depending on the size of the business, I think it's just important to be in the forefront, keeping yourself aware of what's out there and how you can expand and having some dedicated thought leadership is what's the most important and seeing how does it fit to the business?
Natalie Silverman:Good points, valid points. And yeah, I think you're right, honestly, everybody that I asked that question to says the same thing, that it really isn't just a buzzword. So it's good to hear again, that when you're putting it in the context of the enablement, customer experience, scalability, you know, again, I do think it's something that's not going away, and more companies really need to be more forward thinking and how they look at enhancing their processes and people as well. So I'm going to get a little bit back into order-to-cash just because I know you've implemented some order-to- cash solutions in the past. And so at Sidetrade, we always look for advice from people like yourself, and clients, maybe is looking to implement a solution. So what advice would you give somebody that might be looking to automate their order-to-cash process today?
Carrie Gurowitz:Sure. And I think this is more of a general recommendation, and not necessarily one specific order-to-cash. I've implemented a number of systems over the years. And I think the one thing that has always come out is two-fold. One, it's worth it to upfront, create a project plan and really understand what the needs of the business are, who are effective players get those parties involved, and to not rush into decisions to make sure you get it right up front, and to how you want this to work. Too many times I've seen just throwing into a project, doing it and then in the back end, you're trying to fix it and catch up your mistakes, and then ultimately never works, how you want it to work. So I think the time upfront is always important. And then that being said, we have to contradict myself a little bit, don't make perfection, get in the way of completing a big implementation project, it's never going to be perfect. So you know, you need to kind of move forward, understand the priorities and get to where you need to be.
Natalie Silverman:Right. It is an iterative process. And I think sometimes people look at a large implementation, or they think back to maybe the pain that they felt when they were implementing an ERP system. And so whether it like you said, whether it's order-to-cash, an ERP, or just, you know, another software solution, you're right, I think it is an iterative kind of agile process. And, you know, they always say, how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time, right? So it just needs to be kind of a slow and steady process. But I'm going to throw a curveball question, because I usually like to throw one more question in, that you're not aware of. But I wanted to ask you, how do you think about KPIs? That's one thing, because we talked about implementation and automation. And how this can all make your kind of order-to-cash process more effective and efficient, but, you know, you obviously have to look at the metrics and the performance of you know, and where your cash is. So what KPIs are you looking at from a finance perspective?
Carrie Gurowitz:And obviously, it depends on the business and for speaking, specific to cash, you know, our past due percentage, our turn ratios, just our cash on hand. From a SaaS business, you know, we're constantly looking at ARR, because that affects our cash, what is our recurring revenue? And what are our churn percentages and our retention rates in a SaaS business? Obviously, that kind of affects our cash directly. So if we can understand our recurring revenue, what do we expect our term percentages and our retention percentages, we can really get a handle on what our cash is going forward. You know, from a day-to-day management, we want to understand our average days of collections and our past due amount percentages and how that's trending. Are we staying tight to our collections and how our customers are paying?
Natalie Silverman:Sure that makes total sense. What about DSO?
Carrie Gurowitz:Yeah, no, it absolutely is. I think, luckily, today where I am, it's been fairly consistent. So as long as it stays within a range that we're used to, it's hasn't been red flags. But that being said, if an order-to-cash system can improve that let's talk about it every day. So it's definitely something super important. Obviously, that's going to drive the business any day improvement is going to really help the cash collection cycles.
Natalie Silverman:Thanks, Carrie for your insights into the future of finance. For Sidetrade, this is Natalie Silverman.
Conclusion:This has been another episode of Finance to Futurist, a Sidetrade podcast series. Make sure you catch every episode by subscribing to podcasts on Sidetrade.com or through your podcast platform of choice. Thanks so much for tuning in. This podcast is brought to you by Sidetrade, and this for general information purposes only. All rights reserved.