Stacy Luft
She’s Watching Your Bottom Line
“What happens to companies sometimes is they reach a certain level of growth and then they stop growing. They don’t have the internal staff to do the analysis and tell them what to do next. Basically what happens is they get stuck.” – Stacy Luft
Companies that need an experienced financial executive may be too small to afford one full-time. That doesn’t mean they must go without those services altogether. Entering her second decade as a financial officer, Stacy Luft brings the financial analytical skills and the strategic resourcefulness of a full-time Chief Financial
Officer to companies that engage Corporate Performance Consultants, serving as an on-site independent advisor on strategic financial decisions. Focused on identifying areas where change can be readily and profitably implemented, Stacy typically encounters companies where financial systems are improvised, outdated, or inconsistent - sometimes all three.
The remedy begins with a total systems analysis: How does an order come in and how is it handled? How are purchases determined? How are terms negotiated?’ “When I see boxes of products sitting on warehouse shelves what I see is money sitting on those shelves. People are buying in bulk thinking they’re saving money. They're not. Conversely, people are buying in inadequate volume for lack of cash on hand. They also think they're saving money. They’re not. These are expensive problems.”
To Stacy, it's important to institutionalize the financial skills the company needs. She makes it a point to transfer skills so internal people purchase better, negotiate discounts, and integrate purchasing with logistics to shrink the gap between spending and access to goods.
“When you’ve handled financial systems in a larger company, you see ways to apply those solutions in smaller companies. The processes are basically the same. As a result there are steps I can take to help cash flow immediately.”