The growth of CFO services: How to win with MBG’s CFO services in India

The role of a CFO in an Organisation

The Chief Financial Officer, or CFO, is one of the most important senior leadership positions in a company. Indeed, some argue the position is second only to the CEO. The role of a CFO in an organization comprises many duties but, in a nutshell, it is financial leadership and responsibility for a company’s financial actions.

The CFO lays down the company’s financial strategy and financial plans for the future based on solid knowledge and understanding both of its business and the broader economy in which it operates. The CFO tracks cash flow, analyses the company’s financials, and charts out financial planning accordingly, including remedial actions where required. The CFO also heads and manages the company’s finance and accounting department and ensures its financial reports are accurate and on time.

The role of a CFO in an organization goes beyond the confines of a finance department to encompass general management, corporate strategy, and other C-Suite responsibilities. The CFOs provide vital inputs into the company’s investments, capital structure, forecasting, and cost-benefit analyses. They have a significant say in the management of income and expenses and are often also involved in raising capital.

The growing need for CFO services

The demand for specialized services variously termed CFO Advisory, CFO consulting services, or CFO services in India and around the world was already growing fast in recent years but has accelerated even faster since the pandemic.

So, what is CFO Services? What is CFO Advisory? Or CFO consulting services for that matter? The answer to these questions which are common today is that these are services towards a company CFO role’s functions, duties, and responsibilities whether directly as outsourced consultants or indirectly in the form of services rendered to support full-time CFOs in their duties in essentially what is CFO advisory capacity.

The need for CFO services basically arises from two reasons.

The first and most obvious one is that small companies, and often even medium-sized ones,  are not able to afford a full-time CFO, or at least, not experienced high-quality CFOs. This is typically the case with startups, for example. This is a huge drawback as these businesses typically need financial advice and guidance even more than established ones. Engaging an outsourced consultant-CFO, typically a ‘Virtual CFO’ working remotely, is a cost-effective way for them to tap into quality financial experience and expertise at a fraction of full-time hiring costs.

The second reason behind the growth of CFO Advisory Services and CFO Services in India and elsewhere is perhaps more interesting. Companies with finance teams headed by CFOs are also increasingly using CFO services to help enhance their financial management system and maximize financial performance.

These CFOs and finance teams need help with difficulties faced on such issues as the time and costs spent on financial reporting and accounting. Going a step further, these companies find that it helps to have their financials examined and questioned from a new third-party perspective and gain fresh new ideas on how to improve their financial performance across areas such as cost reduction and savings, debt refinancing, data & analytics, and other new technology-enabled improvements, and so on. 

How CFO services help businesses

Considering the above, how companies across size, sector and situation can benefit from CFO services in India and around the world is evident. Whether it is Virtual CFOs consulting for new or small businesses without the budget for a full-time CFO or CFO advisory services enhancing the financial performance of larger businesses that have a full-time CFO, these services deliver help on a broad range of issues. Some of these are:

• Evaluation, review, and recommendation on the overall financials, financial systems and processes, reconciliations, internal controls, and financial reporting of the company.
• Developing strategy and strategic financial planning and modeling, and ensuring technically updated procedures and technology enablement
• Managing accounting, tax, and bookkeeping functions - both overseeing existing controlling staff and systems and designing new ones, as for startups / new businesses
• Managing Financial reporting system – including accurate and on-time reporting, identifying new key metrics to track and monitor, developing reporting automation, ensuring checks and balances to strengthen security, and present accurate financial statements
• Designing and implementing new ways and approaches to maximize profits, reduce costs, cut corporate taxes, increase savings, and grow bottom lines.
• Advising on investment and financing techniques, providing guidance and connections
• Other business value addition such as restructuring contracts for more favorable terms, identifying additional or new key metrics, raising capital
• Enabling full-time CFOs to streamline their day-to-day functional roles and free up time for the more strategic company-leadership role

Conversely, companies not opting for CFO services despite a clear need for them could bear considerable opportunity costs. These could be in the form of new and/or small businesses eventually failing due to lack of the required financial acumen, or even established businesses blind to suboptimal or outdated financial strategies and practices that they have got habituated to and which could damage their businesses going forward. That the benefits of CEO services in India and worldwide outweigh their costs is widely accepted today.

MBG’s CFO services in India maximize your financial performance

At MBG Corporate Services, our CFO services in India enable finance department executives to maximize financial and overall business performance through best practice-based CFO advisory services.

MBG’s CFO advisory professionals help maximize organizations’ financial management capabilities by providing deep insight into client organizations. We leverage advanced technology for the function to operate “better, faster, and cheaper.”

The CFO Services group is led by highly qualified experts with certifications in CA, MBA, and IT and Project Management and who have experience in successful project implementation of both CFO services / CFO advisory and other financial and business projects.

Our CFO advisory services help clients reduce their operating costs, creating shared service centers for the finance function and reorganizing it for increased efficiency. These CFO consulting services ensure that management is always up to date with the critical financial reporting necessary for effective decision making- with reduced time spent, moreover, on the preparation of those reports. And with a perspective that goes beyond what is CFO services conventionally, we look at the functioning of the department as aligning employees’ motivations with the company’s strategic objectives.

Click CFO advisory services to access our list of services.