The Essential CFO: A Corporate Finance Playbook

Chapter Two

Communicating and Achieving Alignment

ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL BENEFITS OF A well-articulated strategic plan is that it can foster alignment among the company's investors, board of directors, chief executive officer (CEO), management team, and employees: It's a great way to get everyone singing from the same hymnal.

The strategic plan also provides milestones through which the CFO and the financial organization can monitor, measure, and evaluate the company's financial performance and forms the basis for the company's incentive compensation programs. CFOs can add considerable value in the design and implementation of the compensation programs, which are powerful tools in driving performance.

In addition, CFOs today typically play an indispensable role in interfacing with the investment community and a growing role with the financial media. Given the powerful developments in communications technology and the explosion of both traditional and online sources of information, it's more important than ever that companies project consistent messaging to the external world, especially with respect to their business and financial strategies. The CFO's playbook should emphasize this priority.

CONSISTENCY AND TRANSPARENCY

CFOs can play an integral role in achieving alignment, emphasizing consistency and transparency in the company's messaging—all the time reinforcing a focus on the strategic plan's business and financial objectives.

Consistent Communications

The strategic plan should ...