“To really excel in the FP&A consulting world, you need to build around people who: (1) Understand the subject matter, (2) Can relate to the customer and their business needs, (3) Understand how the technology works (4) Can marry 1-3 together and (5) Can train and coach others so that they can do the same”
Introducing Titanium Finance
I’m happy to announce our new company: Titanium Finance Solutions
My wife Joy and I have founded Titanium Finance; a company dedicated to the implementation of FP&A software solutions. Our software solutions help finance teams manage their company performance. We cover a wide range of cases: annual operating budgets, monthly forecasting, financial consolidation, month-end close, financial reporting, operational reporting and planning, variance analysis, and others. It’s a software niche where the quality and talent of the implementation partner has a huge impact on the finished product and ultimately how much value the finance team receives. That’s the appeal for us – we can really impact how companies manage their business.
Origins
My roots in FP&A Software go back to 2006, or somewhere thereabouts. I was working for UPS Canada within Industrial Engineering as a Systems specialist. One week, an executive assistant was on vacation and I filled in for her to complete the weekly balanced scorecard for the Canada Region leadership. A few of the steps had me entering financial data into the scorecard and at that point I discovered UPS used a product called Khalix by Toronto-based company Longview. Khalix was the financial source of truth for the whole company. I logged in, followed the instructions and “sliced-and-diced” my way to the data, copied it over and moved on. For someone early in their career who exclusively lived in Excel, Word, Access, and SQL Server and often building tools from scratch, it was something of an “ah ha!” moment.
Parallels are Everywhere
In retrospect, Industrial Engineering was a lot like FP&A. First, I can confidently say Industrial Engineers use Excel every bit as much as Finance professionals! But more important, Industrial Engineering is digging into business processes, understanding the key drivers that make them run, analyzing how they all fit together and where the bottlenecks are, and then working with key stakeholders to make everything run smoothly while injecting insights along the way. The process for creating detailed operational models to analyze package flows through the UPS sorting facility in 15-minute increments really isn’t that different from creating a fully integrated financial model. Packages arrived by truck, they got sorted through a series of conveyor belts, and then ended in a second truck where they ultimately got delivered to a customer the next day. All tightly linked, all part of the company value chain. It was a more granular application, but the same thought process and same skills in play. Failure to plan these operational details well in a courier business leads to understaffed labor, packages mounting up, damages or delays, unhappy customers, and a harmed market reputation.
There is a certain beauty in Financial Planning & Analysis. It’s a mindset that needs to be developed and once you have that mindset you can apply it anywhere. It’s the language of business. It can be as simple or as complex as it needs to be, and a FP&A person is a mix between a scientist and storyteller. The cold, hard numbers are derived from logic, but to have an impact the presentations are aimed to persuade and to educate.
Starting from the Ground Up
After discovering Khalix, I had a job in Longview’s QA department a month later. I remember being on the job and thinking back to possible applications for this type of software at UPS; storing data centrally with automated daily load processes, providing reports to line-managers, a place for people to input assumptions and describe variances, and overall reducing the need for code and customization.
My next career move was with Prophix Software. For the next six years, I learned the practical applications of FP&A software, I worked and trained customers directly, and I learned to architect broad FP&A solutions across many industries. It was here that I really grew a love for uncovering requirements and designing solutions. It’s exciting to stand up in front of customers and learn more about their business, whiteboard the possibilities, and converge onto an optimum software solution. You’re in the zone, it’s the easiest way to achieve Flow (Link) in a work environment.
Each new customer was a new challenge and a source of endless learning. Each new customer was also counting on us to deliver, sometimes having staked their internal reputation on it, and that would always keep us grounded as software consultants; it made all the successes more rewarding and the failures feel personal.
The People
My move to Vena Solutions was my first real experience working in a start-up environment and I loved the pace and flexibility that came with that. I led the professional services team for most of my time there. This experience made it clear to me how important it is to find great talent and retain them. The FP&A software consulting space can be quite demanding and ramp-up for a new consultant is often measured in years rather than weeks or months. The subject matter is extremely broad, and training and preparation can only cover the fundamentals. The industry is also highly competitive and there is often a “race-to-the-bottom” to win business, which drives professional services teams to do more with less. Team members need to be efficient, resourceful, and hard-working for a firm to maintain competitive offerings. Underperformance sticks out like a sore thumb while the most talented and experienced are worth their weight in gold.
To really excel in the FP&A consulting world, you need to build around people who: (1) Understand the subject matter, (2) Can relate to the customer and their business needs, (3) Understand how the technology works (4) Can marry 1-3 together and (5) Can train and coach others so that they can do the same (so crucial for sustainability)
An Indispensable Tool
My tenure at Vena was also extremely valuable because I recognized how amazingly useful software can be in the hands of the customer. Having P&L Forecasting responsibility for the department meant I had to “eat my own dog food” and used the software as a tactical and strategic tool for managing the business. Every two weeks, like clockwork, we’d reforecast our revenue, costs, and headcount for the next 3-6 months based on changes in the project backlog and adjustments to the sales plan. Somewhere along the way, the tool became indispensable to the point that I would never advise a business to go without one.
Who are we?
Our people value accountability, because it governs attitudes toward everything. We value a growth mindset because we’re in a complex business and we need to support each other. We value resilience to meet the demands of consulting life. We value mental agility because we want to wow our customers with our preparation. We value implementation mastery because FP&A solutions implemented well have a multiplier effect for our customers and ensure our long-term partnership.
We believe that the FP&A process is a crucial activity for any business and technology is to key to maximizing the Finance teams’ impact. We seek to build and configure technology solutions that let’s them focus on analysis, collaboration, and decision making. We strive to be the trusted long-term partner who helps our customers pick the right product, advises on the business process, and then guides through the implementation.
We’re playing the long game. The pace of our growth will depend on our ability to attract, train and retain outstanding team players. We’ll turn down work if taking the work means undue pressure on our team or jeopardized quality on our existing engagements.
The Name
Lastly, why Titanium? There were lots of ideas thrown around in the early business planning, but the element Titanium felt like it closely captured what we’re about as a company. It’s highly ductile and can undergo pressure before breaking – the “bend-but-not-break” mentality that is required for FP&A projects when the deadlines are tight, and the to-do list is long. It has numerous applications ranging from aerospace, industrial, and automotive, to medical implants, computers, and consumer goods – it felt like a great parallel to our flexibility for applying our knowledge and know-how to many different use-cases. Lastly, it has a high strength-to-weight ratio, it’s strong like steel but with 60% of the weight – representing high-quality delivery through a small and nimble team.
