CFO Series: Identify the 'Good' Clients to Improve Margins

Overview

Some customers are unprofitable from an economic or time perspective, but many organizations do not know the difference. When an organization has a unique, well-differentiated service or product, understanding value from the customer's perspective becomes a crucial factor in profitable pricing. We must take the time to fully understand what is valuable from the customer's point of view. What is value? Why do brand, value, and customer focus matter? Developing a deep understanding of our customers is vital. Our most important customer might be someone we haven't yet recognized. Understanding both external clients and internal stakeholders, including the evolving role of the finance department, is critical to long-term success.

Prerequisites

None, preferably six months of professional financial statement analysis experience and/or experience in preparing or reviewing accounting processes and reports; experience working with internal or external clients and business leaders. Preferably some experience in analyzing customer profitability.

Objectives

After attending this presentation, you will be able to...

• Recognize different types of customers, including internal stakeholders.
• Build brand value
• Retain your best, most valuable customers over the long term.

Highlights

The major topics that will be covered in this course include:

• Who is our customer?
  • How to segment your customers
  • Identifying and understanding your most valuable customers
• What is solution-based planning for customer value?
• Recognizing internal customers (e.g., departments served by finance)
• Exploring profitability differences between customers with similar revenue
• Creating and sustaining a customer value pyramid