Interesting times to be a part-time FD in the SME market at the moment – trying to produce forecasts for 2008/9 for one of my businesses and to predict the levels of demand, hence staffing resources and working capital requirements is like sticking a finger in the air when you have the shifting sands of currency movements, interest rates and predictions of job losses across the board.
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It’s been a very busy few months for us but finally we’ve concluded our merger with a major competitor and now it’s all about focussing on the post-integration stuff – the details like e-mail addresses, business cards, billing cycles, PR etc; the strategic stuff of team building, culture and business growth.
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I spent a couple of days last week at a business exhibition in Wales – an interesting experience in more ways than one with monsoon like weather conditions coinciding with England’s final one day cricket match against South Africa and only 18 balls being bowled.
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I’ve been thinking about CPD over the last few weeks and how best to most effectively keep myself updated.
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We spent some time yesterday discussing the Business Continuity Plan for the business; we focussed on how having spent much time drawing it up there were constant changes to the business that necessitate revisiting the plan and revising it.
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Late payment has always been an issue for small companies and in the current economic climate where cashflow becomes even more important then it’s really important that SME’s are on top of their credit control procedures.
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I read an interesting article the other day about a survey carried out amongst business executives and their attitudes towards summer holidays – as you might expect there were the usual statistics about the percentage who check work e-mail, voicemails, those who use their holiday as an opportunity to catch up on work related reading etc.
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Many of my businesses are reacting to the various price rises that are now filtering through in different ways – looking at the necessity of making that journey, car sharing, travelling by train, flexible working, conference calls etc – but the one unavoidable consequence of rising prices is going to be increased pressure on salaries in the coming months.

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Many of you reading this won’t have come across the concept of a part-time FD; increasingly popular with SME’s, it allows a business to engage the expertise of a senior finance professional on an ongoing basis but at a cost that they can afford; it puts them on a equal footing with their larger competitors.

For me, a seasoned part-time FD, it brings variety from working with a number of different businesses each month, a plethora of e-mail accounts (!) but all the same issues that FD’s face everywhere. Whether it be the complexities of VAT, foreign currency risk or negotiations with banks it’s our job to deal with these for our businesses. Over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing with you some of the issues that I face day to day.

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