Cfo Thought Leader

CFOTL: When we ask for a finance strategic moment what comes to mind? Yenaropulos: Maybe we can look at one of my experiences when I was living in Chile and I was the CFO of a company whose main business was to provide services to trade and eliminate industrial and hazardous waste. The revenue recognition process began with the reception of the waste the bulk form. The next step was to identify the type of waste and then finally to define and apply the chemical process required in order to convert it into nonhazardous waste. All of these processes were very manual, which as a result had a huge impact on the finances and working capital. Imagine if a company was not able to invoice for services to the client until it had finished the identification of the waste and its subsequent treatment. Additionally, another problem was that the company was held responsible for any environmental damage that may have occurred from the hazardous waste that it had already received and that was waiting for its final treatment.