Acting as your part-time Finance Director

Axiom-e's role

Axiom-e was one of the first companies to provide the services of part-time Finance Directors. Our advice on choosing a part-time Finance Director is based on years of experience and success in helping all sorts of clients. An increasing number of growing and early-stage rely on Axiom-e's experienced staff acting as part-time (p/t) (or "portfolio") Finance Directors to meet their strategic financial management needs. We focus on business planning and fund-raising, acquisitions and grooming companies for sale and get involved in providing general business advice and guidance to senior management.

For a quick profile of Axiom-e and our consultants, see the article Ahead of the game which appeared in the magazine Mergers and Acquisitions.

To get a better understanding of the work we can undertake for you and how a part-time Finance Director can assist your company grow, visit our Finance Director's Resource Centre.

As you can see, the work of a Finance Director is multi-faceted and encompasses much more than accounting work. As one of the few people to have an understanding of all aspects of a company's operations and strategy, the Finance Director usually acts as the key right-hand person of the Chief Executive/Managing Director.

An organisation needs good financial management at all times. It is never too early (but it can often be too late) to call on experts to help you plan, manage and deliver results.

To find out more about how Axiom-e can take care of your business by adding value to your organisation and so giving you the axiom-edge over your competitors, please contact us.

The benefit of financial skills

Given where our clients are in their business life-cycle, it is not surprising that the Directors of several of them have relatively narrow skills focused on technology or selling. We often find that our broader-based complementary commercial skills and awareness are required to drive the business effectively towards its strategic goals.

Because each of Axiom-e's portfolio Directors has been Finance Director and Company Secretary of at least one company and has gained wide experience in several companies, we are able to complement the skills and knowledge of our clients' other directors thereby enabling synergies to arise.

Apart from helping to improve general corporate management, the broad-based experience of our staff enables us to:

• act as a sounding-board for the Managing Director/CEO and the rest of the Board
• question the Board's activities and decision-making processes
• introduce a different way of thinking, usually more focused on longer-term objectives but which still considers what is necessary to keep going in the short-term

Strategic financial input

According to a survey reported in the Times on 13th December 2004:

Only a third of chief financial officers in Europe and the US provide strategy advice to their chief executives.

CFO Research Services which carried out the survey...found that most of its respondents were too busy conducting operational analysis to focus on strategy matters.

Two in three respondents saw their primary responsibility as setting and monitoring revenues, costs and profits and admitted to getting bogged down in low-value activities."

By contrast, Axiom-e focuses on higher-value strategic financial management and can provide assistance whether or not a client has a Finance Director or CFO in place.

Importantly, we focus on the key areas regarded as part of the role of the Finance Director rather than (or in addition to) that of the Finance Manager or Financial Controller.

Gaining the axiom-edge

Apart from suitably experienced Finance Directors, our Consultants also include former Managing Directors who have helped develop then sell companies. We can thus provide staff to act as Non Executive Director to your company and provide guidance on good corporate governance as well as acting as a mentor for younger members of your Management Team.

To find out how Axiom-e can give your company the axiom-edge, please contact us for your free initial meeting.

axiom-e...the Strategic Financial Management Consultancy
97 Brewery Road, Pampisford, Cambridge CB22 3EW United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1223 839579 Fax: +44 (0)1223 839581 Email: info@axiom-e.co.uk