Client Situation
A rapidly growing Software as a Service fleet telematics provider was facing the envious problem of how to effectively scale the business to handle rapid growth. The company had just turned the corner to profitability, yet Key Performance Indicators (“KPI’s”) were non-existent. This lack of an essential performance monitoring tool was the root cause of over-hiring followed by layoffs, which negatively impacted productivity and morale, and business line margins being not well understood resulting in misallocation of internal resources.
Solution
Hired as CFO, the Company’s first professional (non-founder) executive, now a E78 team member, implemented numerous financial and operational process improvements that helped to scale the business in a strategically advantageous method, while enhancing the overall customer experience and greatly improving profitability. These process improvements included;
- Defined KPI’s for each departmental unit and market segment
- Standardized the monthly accounting close and developed a comprehensive management reporting package allowing for timely reporting of financial results and actuals against KPI’s, providing the ability to make business decisions based on accurate and current information
- Developed a comprehensive 5-year budget and forecasting model with unit-level economics, customer verticals, and departmental account/project based inputs. This provided a thorough understanding of business activity level and market segment profitability, and allowed for planned investment in growth based on the achievement of financial and operational milestones.
Results
During the executive’s tenure as CFO, revenues grew from approximately $35 Million to over $115 Million and EBITDA margins improved from 3% to 20%. These results contributed to a highly successful exit for the founders and other shareholders.