What qualities should top financial managers have?

Because of working relationships, often dealing with financial managers from all walks of life, they find that the individual differences between them are great, but can still find some common ground. What surprised me most at first was that most of these people did not have the makings of a typical financial officer, and even many people were not from finance. They look stronger, more assertive, and more cheerful, unlike the relatively conservative, serious, cautious image of a typical financial officer. This is I think of the novel "Liang Jian", surrendered to the Kuomintang generals said: "Liyunlong temperament is a bright sword spirit, the impact of the army with far-reaching."

I try to sum up a little of their common characteristics and find that in addition to character, the focus of the problem is clearly different from that of the general financial manager.

Finance Manager: Understand the industry you are in.

I feel the same way, interviewing financial staff, a lot of financial staff to give me the feeling is: we are engaged in financial: we can work in many industries, so they feel the grasp of the financial principles can go through the world! But once asked: what is your company's position in the industry, the industry's CAGR (annual composite growth rate) What is the biggest feature of your industry's financial structure---------------------not a few answers. That is, in order to finance and finance, so there is no concern for the industry, feel that there is no relationship with the financial, but you do not feel that the financial manager, it is a disaster! Like no "universal truth", no financial manager with industry is unqualified.

Second, finance Manager: Why is the understanding of the industry important?

From a macro point of view, if you lack of understanding of the industry, it is not possible to make a judgment on the new product's listing, the feasibility of the investment, and the development of a long-term strategy-these are the big things that affect the future of the whole development of the company! Of course, a lot of finance managers don't have the opportunity to be directly involved in these big things, but even if you don't have the right to make decisions, , but you can also develop your own judgment independently-----------------------------the Finance managers

From the microscopic point of view, when you make a budget for the whole year, how do you judge the sales or marketing department to provide sales plan, unit price plan is reasonable, the purchase of raw materials is reasonable price-if the most basic assumptions you can not have a reasonable explanation and understanding, then your budget itself will be greatly reduced accuracy!

Third, the finance manager: must have the general picture

He even complains that the factory leaders of the various business departments do not spend their teambuilding budget--because the cost is counted into the profit center of the various business departments--he even comes up with his own budget. Spend some money, let everyone know more, get along with the happy point-this is the greatest savings, do not love that little money-his mantra.

In his body, I learned that it is important to "get out of finance" based on finance. A bit like the wind fatwas Fox Chong "Lone Solitary Nine swords", finally asked him: just I teach tricks, you forget how much? So the Fox responded: "Forget almost!" The wind felt "Costing". I know, how many years of work habits are difficult to get rid of, especially financial is a very many departments, how to make their ideas less rigid is a key factor. Every day I die staring at the invoice is not consistent with the rules, is not on time reimbursement, is not a budget, but do not consider the other party's feelings-most likely the financial department is the other department's eyes the most bureaucratic-even with the administration of the government to match! Remember the former Ford Motor Company CEO Lee Yai said a word to Randy finance: "You are the most relaxed department in the world, do not consider the sales performance, you know the cost of cutting, you do not have the pressure of indicators!"

Actually calmly think about the financial manager work, its content is not many people imagine so professional, so you need to return to common sense, from common sense judgment problem, 60%-70% is wrong.

Financial Manager: Be a bit adventurous, dare to take responsibility.

I know this is a bit difficult for financial managers, prudence and conservatism is the basic premise of financial work, so now suddenly let the financial staff have the spirit of adventure is contrary to common sense. Prudence and conservatism, in fact, teach you to think as much as possible of the potential risks in your accounts--not to overestimate your income, to underestimate the cost, rather than to let you sing all the time. But to do the position of the Finance manager, consider the problem on the one hand everyone in the heat of the cold water-10 people say "yes" when do say "no", on the other hand, we did not think of the link to find a breakthrough. Because the business achieves certain degree, the expansion method besides increases own investment, another very important is through the M&a method, carries on the fast market occupation. But M&a is a high-risk behavior that needs a strategic perspective and is not a success on several financial statements and analyses.

The risk of acquiring an enterprise is certainly quite large: because the information is not symmetrical, so can not effectively grasp the effective information, because the other side of the financial situation is bad-usually good business is not too much to sell, so the integration cost is very high, because there are many legal provisions involved, inadvertently omitted a certain item may be fatal. When making m&a decisions, the CEO and CFO are the chief executives, and if there is not enough risk-taking, it is impossible to talk about acquiring a business. N successfully acquired multiple companies and used the loopholes of the inheritance of the loss-making enterprise income tax to save a lot of income tax on the headquarters-these benefits are far from being able to come out from several statements.

On the whole, it's not easy to do this-otherwise everyone is a finance manager! But don't make your finances mysterious, and get back to common sense when you think about problems. The hard part is that you need to be able to get out of the way when dealing with a very boring finance manager--people with limited brain space, often forgetting about the macro or the opposite. If you're not doing your job well in a middle-level financial position, there's no further question of promotion. So "brain to be active, behavior to regulate" is the key.