A strong finance function can drive innovation and proactively influence real-time strategic decision making, while its commercial insight helps broaden interactive stakeholder engagement and communication.
As a new and unpredictable decade dawns, the business world looks forward with its optimism largely intact, according to Grant Thornton’s latest International Business Report (IBR). Leaders in mid-market companies around the world delivered an average optimism score of 59% in H2 2019, a rise of 3% over the first half of the year. This modest improvement is an encouraging contrast to the two consecutive declines that preceded it, although there remains a long way to climb before reaching H1 2018’s high of 69% global optimism.
Despite the challenges facing the Thai economy, businesses in Thailand can succeed in 2020 by reducing overheads, conserving cash, improving efficiency of internal structures, and focusing on customer service.
With the economic outlook in Thailand less bright than in years past, we look at how the country can find a new way forward for future business success.
For many manufacturers, cash flow is the limiting factor that determines how many new business opportunities they are able to pursue, and how ambitious their strategy can be as they plan for the future. The demands of Industry 4.0 require data-driven management both inside and outside the factory, requiring continuous capital investment to keep pace with a fast-moving business environment. Pricing pressures add to the challenge, reducing margins even as customer demands increase ever more quickly. Even the most forward-thinking manufacturers will have trouble staying ahead of the curve if they cannot access enough internal cash flow to keep the wheels of innovation turning.
Across all industries, effective management of the entire end-to-end value chain can drive significant improvements both in terms of cash flow as well as profits. For retailers, however, the optimal strategy can be even more tightly focused, as cash and profits go hand in hand. The faster stock can be turned, the more profit and cash can be generated. Even so, the aim should not just be about turning stock quickly, but rather about turning the right stock quickly – and knowing how to align the speed of your supply chain to ever changing customer demands.
Keeping pace with a fast-moving economy means continually re-investing profits to fund future growth. Although many companies struggle to access the liquidity needed to enable timely investment, a proactive approach to working capital management can free up significant untapped cash within any business, providing a platform for longer term, sustainable growth.
A recent Grant Thornton survey of over 300 senior executives found that 89% believe the CFO of the future will require much stronger data analytics skills – and fully 75% plan to upgrade their personal data analytics skills in the coming year.
Effective cash management is a critical success factor for any business. To fund growth, invest in new infrastructure or mitigate short term downturns, having strong visibility and control of day-to-day cash is a must.
Grant Thornton China's Asia Private Equity review looks specifically into the private equity activities across the region to see how private equity funds perform in Asia as compared to the global environment. It also aims to identify the key challenges facing the private equity funds across the region, and provides an outlook for future private equity activities in Asia and globally.
Optimising working capital requirements is key to assessing the efficiency of profits, and something CFOs are expected to manage at all times. Do you know how well working capital is managed in your business and where improvements could be made?
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has published amendments to IAS 28 ‘Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures’ clarifying that companies account for long-term interests in an associate or joint venture—to which the equity method is not applied—using IFRS 9 ‘Financial Instruments’.