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Coffee is one of the most sought after commodities in the world but even that fact doesn’t make coffee traders immune to economic turbulence.

Such was the case for family-run green bean coffee merchant D.R. Wakefield. During one particularly volatile period, the UK-based business was subject to some tough grilling by its bank but just didn’t have the wherewithal to supply the answers.

“We simply didn’t have enough background information, data and statistics collated in a manner required by the bank,” recalls CEO Simon Wakefield.

Rapid growth is the stuff most entrepreneurs dream about as they take their fledgling company through the early years but when it happens, it can quickly become the stuff of nightmares.

The bubbles in the celebratory champagne—“Here’s to our success!”—barely have time to go flat before the problems arise across the high-impact growth or Scale Up business.

Suddenly owners are beset by problems involving the people they’ve hired or not hired,

If You Want To Succeed, You Need To Embrace The ‘F’ Word

What do Sir James Dyson, the Mercedes F1 team, Pixar, Google and the airline industry have in common?

They’re hugely successful, yes. But the thing that links them is they never shy away from the ‘F’ word—Failure. Instead, they face and learn from their mistakes, errors and mishaps. So says Matthew Syed, award-winning Times journalist and best-selling author of ‘Black Box Thinking: Marginal Gains and the Secrets of High Performance’ (John Murray).

Do you dream of selling your business for a very tidy profit so you can retire and spend your days on luxury cruises or working on your golf handicap?

Well, without an exit plan, your dream may be just that; a dream that never comes to fruition.

Sell at the wrong time or without thinking about the impact of taxation, for example, and you really could be left with nothing to show for your years of hard work.

All too many business owners think that the battle is won once the marketing rolls out and the product is sold. They see that their investment of time and resources has paid off and therefore, assume that their goal has been achieved.

However, the fruit of these hard-won victories will quickly run out if the accounts receivable, as well as the accounts payable, is not carefully maintained with a structured cash-flow management plan.

Ask any bank manager who their worst customers are and they will quickly tell you: the people who have no idea what is going on in their business. Some customers ask for finance or expect to maintain an overdraft, yet they cannot even produce up-to-date accounts!

As a business grows, it will need to delegate key tasks to experienced and qualified team members. The areas the business owner will seek help in first will be determined by the focus and needs of the business;

Despite some analysts’ grim financial forecasts, 2016 can be a year of exponential growth for your business. The key is to think big and to think outside the box.

Instead of making a list of all the ways you can cut back, make a list of all the ways you can increase your revenue tenfold. Once you have done this, narrow it down to the best three.

Now, you will need a plan of action.

In today’s business world, the job of a CFO is not simply to keep track of a company’s cash-flow but also to find ways of improving it. The CFO analyses accounts and contracts, identifies those which are reaping returns, those that could reap better returns and those which should be pruned. In other words, the modern CFO is not just a “bean counter” but a “bean grower,” as well.

Although the CEO may be in charge of drawing up the big picture,

The CFO Centre has developed a quick and efficient tool for rating your company’s finance function: the ‘F Score’ test.  This test takes around 7 minutes to complete, covers the 12 key areas of your finance function and provides you with a detailed eight page report.

The purpose of this report is to provide you with your ‘F Score’ profile, from which you will learn about the role of the finance function in the wider context of your business as well as highlighting key areas where significant and valuable improvements can be made.

Rolling Back The Years…

The comedian Barry Cryer tells a story about a Finance Director walking down the street. The FD is approached by a homeless man. “Excuse me, mate” says the man “can you spare me a few quid, I haven’t eaten for two weeks”? “ I see” says the FD “And how does that compare with the same period last year”?

Of course, no FD would be that heartless but the story also hides a deeper truth – most of us think in fixed periods of time,