Finance + Accounting

• Finance Function Transformation
• Organizational Effectiveness + Resource Planning
• Planning, Budgeting + Financial Reporting

Finance Function Transformation

The pressures and demands on CFOs and their organizations keep coming. Where do you see your organization in 3-5 years? North Highland applies a very practical and proven approach to strategy around the role of finance in an organization, using small teams that combine experience in finance and accounting, strategic planning, and finance technology. This combination allows us to collaborate with finance leaders to deliver big transformation with rapid payback.

A national insurance company was dealing with a dramatic shift from private to public, along with the need to achieve better economies of scale. Years of mergers had left them with disparate finance organizations and multiple technology platforms. A North Highland team helped this client lay out a roadmap for change, leveraging lessons learned from 10 companies that had "been there and done that".

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Organizational Effectiveness + Resource Planning

One of the most challenging aspects of a finance leader's role is how to deliberately build skills and capabilities into the organization. Business demands are changing rapidly, yet successful change for organizations and people is always an enormous challenge. What are the skills and competencies you need in the future? How do you attract and develop finance leaders in your company? We combine our expertise in human capital and change management with deep finance and accounting knowledge to develop a people plan that enables you to reach your goals.

North Highland assisted the world's leading provider of used motor vehicles and services to strategically restructure its finance organization to better meet the growing financial and accounting demands of the business and reflect expansion into new global markets. We were able to realign the current organization, detail additional resource requirements, document processes that needed to be enhanced, and construct a roadmap for tackling improvement opportunities. The future state solution created an organization that supports growth and changes in the business, enhances decision support, minimizes compliance and financial risks, improves communication and training, and establishes the proper span of control, line of authority, and division of labor.

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Planning, Budgeting + Financial Reporting

Financial reporting does not begin and end with the production of financial statements. In today's dynamic business environment, with stronger controls and demands for more information, an integrated financial planning and reporting process and system are essential. North Highland has partnered with some of the most forward thinking companies to develop best-in-class processes and systems that provide the level of insight and control necessary to manage in today's demanding environment. We have worked with clients to integrate long-range planning, budgeting and forecasting, and reporting activities into a cohesive, technology-enabled solution.

For a large utility company, we established the vision for managing a very dynamic business with unique business segments and a complex planning environment. We assisted with the technology vision and selection and the development of planning elements for a strategic management process that impacted 500 users across the United States. For a global financial services technology company, we established a management reporting process and system that supported integrated planning and forecasting for 70 business units. The resulting processes and tools allowed the CFO to view the entire business in a dynamic, bi-weekly view that supported his reporting and analysis to the executive team and stakeholders.

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