Key Discovery Questions
This set of discovery questions is designed to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of a company's working capital strategy and current methods for managing short-term cash flow. These questions are also intended to gather detailed information regarding the company's annual expenditures, their strategic emphasis on either margins or working capital, and their existing financial and supply chain finance programs. Possible discovery questions for the main personas could be the following:
CFO and Treasurer inquire about working capital and free cash flow targets, as well as their focus on cost savings and margin improvement:
- Do you have Working Capital and/ or Free Cash Flow targets? How comfortable do you feel in reaching them?
- If you have targets in place, is your working capital strategy focused to generate cost savings/ margin through capturing supplier discounts, improving free cash flow or both?
- Do you have a traditional Supply Chain Finance or Receivables Finance program in place with your bank and how satisfied are you when it comes to scaling these programs as well as automating business processes?
CPO main priorities are around supply chain resilience, sustainability, and supplier management programs:
- How important is fostering supply chain resilience and supplier diversification for you, including incentivizing specific sustainability goals?
- Do you have a P-card or V-card program in place to manage long-tail suppliers and control spend?
- Do you use SAP Business Network as your central supplier portal and want to learn more about value-adding scenarios for your suppliers?
CIO explores their digital finance transformation road map and the importance of reducing third-party interfaces:
- Do you have a clean core strategy in place and how important is the reduction of third-party interfaces such as bank interfaces to you?
What is your road map when it comes to digital Finance transformation, especially in the area of Working Capital and Cash Management?