The CFO Agenda: Packer Fastener’s Brian Hogeland

Learn more about NetSuite Analytics Warehouse: https://tinyurl.com/2pynh34j

 

Tune in for the next installment of The CFO Agenda series featuring Brian Hogeland, CFO of Packer Fastener, a distributor of fasteners and industrial supplies. Brian and cohost Ian McCue kicks off the podcast episode by discussing Brian’s background and what brought him to the CFO role [2:06]. They then delve into the biggest challenges Packer Fastener has faced as it has grown [11:07] and its use of NetSuite [16:09]. They discuss talent and the workforce and how automation is playing a role in the future of finance and accounting [23:40]. Brian and Ian conclude the episode by discussing CFO priorities for 2025, including incorporating AI [30:47].

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Episode Transcript:

00;00;04;10 - 00;00;34;10 

Unknown 

Hey, listeners. Welcome to the NetSuite podcast. I'm Megan O'Brien, co-host of the podcast. And today we're continuing our CFO agenda series with Brian Hogland. Brian is the CFO of Packer Fastener, a rapidly growing distributor of nuts, bolts and other industrial supplies. Brian sits down with NetSuite Podcast co-host Ian McCue and walks him through his background and how roles across finance and technology prepared him for the C-suite. 

 

00;00;34;13 - 00;01;01;01 

Unknown 

He then explains how Packer Fastener has grown beyond its roots as a regional distributor, despite supply chain and inflationary challenges, as well as the specific framework its use to drive the business forward. The CFO explains how NetSuite helped the company manage its growing operations, which includes actively sourcing 30,000 items and specifically the value it's gained from NetSuite Analytics Warehouse. 

 

00;01;01;04 - 00;01;32;08 

Unknown 

With new technologies demonstrating potential to reshape the work of the finance team. Brian shares what skills he thinks will remain critical for finance professionals. He also offers perspective on what he looks for when he's hiring and how leaders can attract top finance talent. Brian then sheds light on Packer Fasteners’ ambitious plans for 2025. He walks through potential challenges, technology initiatives, and how he's preparing his team to leverage new AI tools. 

 

00;01;32;11 - 00;01;39;29 

Unknown 

Stay tuned, because all of that and more is coming momentarily. 

 

00;01;40;02 - 00;02;06;19 

Unknown 

You're listening to the NetSuite podcast, where we discuss what's happening within NetSuite, why we're doing it, and where we're heading in the future. We'll dive into the details about the software and the people in next week who are behind all the moving parts. We'll also feature customer growth stories discussing the ups and downs of running a company, and how one integrated system can help your business continue to scale. 

 

00;02;06;21 - 00;02;27;16 

Unknown 

So, Brian, let's start with a bit about your background and who you are. Was your plan always kind of to work in finance and hopefully become a CFO one day? It was. I graduated from college in the mid 90s, and the internet was this really cool thing that had just popped at the time. So I was graduating, graduating with a degree in accounting. 

 

00;02;27;19 - 00;02;48;11 

Unknown 

Really had been talking to a lot of CPA firms to come in and join them, but was really intrigued by this whole World Wide Web concept. I went into my library my last semester of college and actually bought tickets for the Grateful Dead. Actually sent in, like a money order back in the day. But, so it was this whole new, exciting environment. 

 

00;02;48;14 - 00;03;11;02 

Unknown 

And, so while I had the, obviously the discipline and the skills to understand finance was really intrigued by this technology part. So a couple of years after I started my career with Arthur Andersen, I moved over into a technology consulting role and really just really had a lot of fun with that, embraced it. And spent probably the next ten years of my career doing technology. 

 

00;03;11;03 - 00;03;32;00 

Unknown 

So it kind of went from being, you know, aspiring to maybe be a be like a CPA partner doing audits and tax work to maybe really hands on technology roles and, probably around 2010, I moved back into like a, typical finance role. So that's where I kind of started to do more of the progression, the typical financial leadership roles. 

 

00;03;32;02 - 00;03;52;08 

Unknown 

And I guess why? Why did you decide to go back into kind of the traditional finance accounting side after being more on the technology side for a while? Yeah. You know, the sort of there's an analytical aspect of all the financials. Right. So, that was intriguing. The company I had worked for at the time had just onboarded a significant, Oracle, actually, ERP solution. 

 

00;03;52;11 - 00;04;09;29 

Unknown 

And they were looking for somebody with a finance and technology background to kind of help stabilize that, then implementation. And it was a chance for me to really get back into the finance world, but still not have to stretch too far. Same company. Obviously, you know, the solution, the technology solution. So the kind of trading hats within the same company. 

 

00;04;09;29 - 00;04;33;13 

Unknown 

And I'd be lying if I said, you know, getting the pager calls at 3:00 in the morning because somebody couldn't log in. I might have had a factor in that switch too. But yeah, I definitely, I liked the stability and the analytical nature of the finance teams. And as you kind of reflect on some of those, those past roles and your progression through your career, were there any particular positions that you feel like really helped you prepare to where you are today? 

 

00;04;33;13 - 00;04;54;00 

Unknown 

Running, running a finance department for a really fast growing company. So I worked for a large transportation company, for 16 years. And as I moved back into that financial role that I mentioned earlier, there's certain stops along the way there that, there was a corporate accounting role focused really on an month and closed process. And, it's a large, large company. 

 

00;04;54;00 - 00;05;19;02 

Unknown 

So you have to really gather a lot of different teams together and make sure that executing on a financial close, there's are very specific tasks that have to happen in certain orders. So kind of that monthly closed discipline and moved from there into an internal audit leader role. So focusing on, you know, the audit and compliance and risk management working with our board of directors at the time. 

 

00;05;19;04 - 00;05;47;29 

Unknown 

We went through an initial public offering during my time with that, and I'd been through several IPOs in the past, but it was really you know, working with bankers and lawyers and, auditors through that process. And then again, a next evolution. That same company was into a more, like a segment controller role where you're focusing a lot on here's how a business financial person looks at, you know, things, who's partnering with some of the, the, or business leaders. 

 

00;05;48;02 - 00;06;09;10 

Unknown 

How are they analyzing a problem? How can I help support that? Giving some insight into, you know, budgeting and, you know, tracking how you're doing against some of the metrics and the goals, doing financial modeling for specific scenarios. Those all were progressively, important, I think, in getting me to the spot where I'm at today. It sounds like you kind of added like more and more strategic targets, right? 

 

00;06;09;10 - 00;06;26;07 

Unknown 

When you're talking about things like IPOs and modeling. So you start to move beyond. Well, first it was accounting. Then you started moving into tech. And then you kind of pair them together and started taking these more strategic type, I guess, roles and responsibilities that that kind of fair to say. Yeah. And some of it was, opportunistic. 

 

00;06;26;07 - 00;06;44;22 

Unknown 

Some of it was intentional. You know, there's a point where you're looking at, for example, as we became a public company, having to manage the Sarbanes-Oxley function as a, as a public company, not something I was super interested in. Anybody that's listening to this that's been through a Sarbanes-Oxley environment knows that it's not exactly the most efficient use of our time. 

 

00;06;44;24 - 00;07;05;06 

Unknown 

And so really trying to move into more of a how can I how can I learn more, how can I help grow a profitable business? That was a very intentional move. Awesome. And moving into your current role at Packer Fastener. First off, can you just share with our listeners what Packer Fastener does? Sure. So, Packer Fastener is one of eight different entities within our umbrella. 

 

00;07;05;08 - 00;07;26;26 

Unknown 

The specific business buys and sells nuts and bolts. Kind of a very simply stated, we, we have a warehouse full of threaded fasteners. And we, sometimes move into safety equipment or paint and, types of, of solutions are we have banding or we will, drop vending machines at our customers and fill those vending machines. 

 

00;07;26;26 - 00;07;54;03 

Unknown 

We have vendor manage inventory, customer manage inventory, some consignment. But it's really out there, trying to support electrical contractors, HVAC contractors, manufacturers, a lot of construction. So as we've seen, a lot of increase in construction spend, in particular the last couple of years, we've been able to, help our customers grow in that space as well. So it's really focused on, again, sort of low tech nuts and bolts and, you know, really growing environment. 

 

00;07;54;06 - 00;08;16;04 

Unknown 

And Packer Fastener has been around since 1998. So you guys have, you know, pretty fairly lengthy history at this point. But the business, it sounds like, is really focused on expanding in the past decade. Could you just talk a little bit about how the company has grown and how it's evolved and in more recent years? Sure. You know, long before I started with the company, there was a real focus around 2014, a very strategic focus. 

 

00;08;16;04 - 00;08;42;18 

Unknown 

Instead of kind of being a, you know, sort of a small Green Bay, maybe northeast Wisconsin distributor really focused on how can we grow. Our CEO really came with a lot of perspective on trying to provide opportunities for those around him, really focusing on how can we intentionally set bags and what's our big hairy audacious goals? How can we let's sit down and define who we are, you know, what are the markets we intend to serve? 

 

00;08;42;21 - 00;09;01;18 

Unknown 

We have this concept of flywheel where it's, you know, how can we take different parts of our business day in and day out and feed the rest of it and essentially get this kind of like a flywheel concept? Take that and keep it growing and spinning and making the business faster and better. So it was a very intentional focus around that time in 2014 and over the years. 

 

00;09;01;24 - 00;09;22;29 

Unknown 

I joined the company in 2021. So focusing on growing the business significantly. So it's a pretty, pretty lofty goals each year and revenue and volume growth. We meet with a strategic coach four times a year. He helps us get realigned on our we call them rock sets. We kind of subscribe to the whole traction iOS, enterprise operating system model. 

 

00;09;23;01 - 00;09;49;11 

Unknown 

So we focus on our rocks. Each quarter we set new rocks, we check in. How are we doing on those rocks? And all of that really feels that's this, this strategic growth. So there's be hangs that you said, you know, years ago sort of just happened. You know, it isn't really a surprise when you set through your goals and look back and say, gosh, we ticked off, you know, 95% of those three year goals that we said, so it's a really intentional, disciplined focus that's I think has really helped our organization grow. 

 

00;09;49;13 - 00;10;05;08 

Unknown 

And what does that look like for the business? Like you said, Packer fasteners just kind of one arm, maybe the biggest arm, but it's one arm of the business. So what does that how is, you know, how does big goals, and that kind of strategic thinking manifested in terms of what the business is now versus what it was five, ten years ago? 

 

00;10;05;10 - 00;10;23;08 

Unknown 

Yeah, I would say it's when you put yourself in a position where you're setting goals to grow and then holding yourself accountable and your intention, people on that growth, people start to think differently about it, right? So you wake up and, you know, every day you come to work and maybe you're focused on, I have this goal and everything gets reset at zero on January 1st. 

 

00;10;23;08 - 00;10;43;24 

Unknown 

And so how am I going to grow and meet that, that annual goal? How am I going to meet these monthly goals and breaking those really big goals down into smaller, more manageable pieces for each department? So this whole traction iOS model has this, this notion of setting strategic goals up here, but then you sort of cascade down to the different teams, ultimately all of them supporting that larger goal. 

 

00;10;43;27 - 00;11;01;22 

Unknown 

And that's really it's taken time. But it was very methodical rollout. Now all the different departments we have our weekly all times we call them and people that are familiar with this model, they get the all time concept group. So we have weekly all ten meetings where you focus on, hey, what are my rocks for the quarter? What are the company rocks? 

 

00;11;01;22 - 00;11;22;27 

Unknown 

How am I supporting all of that? It's, very intentional, very, very methodical. I like that, yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. What have been some of the biggest challenges for, for the business as you've grown quickly and expanded and, and kind of thought differently about what the business could be? Certainly people. People as our biggest challenge, we believe strongly I mentioned the flywheel earlier. 

 

00;11;22;29 - 00;11;47;19 

Unknown 

That starts and ends with people. So we want to hire we want to retain a really good people. We have a very strong culture, really focused on 12 different specific, pieces that we call swagger. And we want people that are really subscribe to that, that buy into that. And so finding people out there that match that, that's that swagger and then finding enough of them to continue growing the business. 

 

00;11;47;19 - 00;12;07;23 

Unknown 

Right. So all of our growth is geographic growth. It's on landing new customers. It's supporting more vendor manage inventories. A lot of that requires people to do that. And so really finding the right people that match our skill sets, our culture is probably one of the biggest challenges. And then the flip side of that is we have really good retention. 

 

00;12;07;23 - 00;12;26;00 

Unknown 

So we have a, kind of a running joke here that it's harder to get into our company than it is to get into Harvard. Number of job postings that we have, where the applications we have for a particular job posting, there's fewer people that are accepted or hired when you compare it to Harvard's acceptance rate. So we take a lot of pride in that. 

 

00;12;26;00 - 00;12;46;09 

Unknown 

We have a lot of really good people, and we really try to nurture that. But in order to keep the company growing, we have to keep feeding that funnel, right? So that's a significant challenge for us. A lot of the other challenges we've had, supply chain issues that were really prevalent during Covid and all the inflation that came with, those are pretty significant items we had to navigate through. 

 

00;12;46;12 - 00;13;04;12 

Unknown 

And even just on the horizon year was a lot of talk about tariffs and, you know, sort of globalization. We're, you know, anticipating some of those things that are going to continue to be challenges for us. So like a lot of companies, we had to sort of dust off the playbook and figure out, you know, inflation really hasn't been an issue for 40 years, but we got to hear how to deal with it. 

 

00;13;04;12 - 00;13;18;21 

Unknown 

How are we going to manage that? How are we going to make sure we're still profitable. So you have to pass along some of those price increases to your customers. Those aren't always fun conversations. And how do you so those have been really, really important goals for us to make sure that we continue on and continue to expand. 

 

00;13;18;24 - 00;13;38;00 

Unknown 

What do you think was key to continuing to grow through that, to grow through especially some of the supply chain and inflationary challenges? Like, what approach do you think worked for you guys? Yeah. So a lot of it was, we have good relationships with our vendors. We, several key vendors that supply us a good chunk of our inventory that we, that we buy and sell to our customers. 

 

00;13;38;03 - 00;14;03;17 

Unknown 

And so maintaining those positive relationships, being really open and candid with, with our vendors and vice versa, them really having these strong relationships where there's really honest feedback that's been really, really helpful, navigating, keeping, you know, consistent partners and sort of flipping around back and forth. Maybe you'll find the lowest price here, but in the end, you maybe not necessarily getting the same delivery, the same timelines, pricing can fluctuate all over the place. 

 

00;14;03;17 - 00;14;20;00 

Unknown 

If you when we focus on those strong relationships on the vendor side and also on our customers, we want to make sure that we have that open dialog with the customers. We want to go in and explain to customers that, hey, this is you know, this is the nature of the world right now. We can't get the inventory that you're looking for. 

 

00;14;20;03 - 00;14;41;12 

Unknown 

Without increasing the cost of that. And, you know, thankfully, it was a pretty prevalent topic during the Covid timelines. A lot of customers understood that that wasn't something that we liked having to do, but it was important and everybody was dealing with it. Yeah. No, I think those are our great tips and great general advice for getting through something like that. 

 

00;14;41;15 - 00;15;04;12 

Unknown 

And last question that's kind of focused on you, I guess. But what is your typical day look like? What's kind of consistent on a day and day basis. And what maybe is less predictable or changes by the day? Yes. So in my role as CFO, it generally varies, as you would expect, day by day, even, you know, obviously with a month in focus, we the first couple days of the month tend to be focused on trying to wrap up the prior month. 

 

00;15;04;12 - 00;15;25;05 

Unknown 

But, we have a pretty strong focus on not scheduling a whole lot of meetings on Mondays and Fridays. That allows us to focus on sort of digging in and getting work done. We have a a GSD and get stuff done, you know, type of culture. And you can't just spend your entire week in meetings. You have to have time to, to get in and, and drill into the details and figure out what's going on. 

 

00;15;25;05 - 00;15;44;02 

Unknown 

So Mondays and Fridays tend to be pretty good. We can focus on those, whether it's quarterly rocks. Maybe doing a deep dive on a topic can be building on a model. My typical day will start. I'll come in and analyze our cash position in any given day. And how are we doing with that? What are big, wrinkles that are coming on the horizon, trying to just assess where we're at? 

 

00;15;44;04 - 00;16;00;27 

Unknown 

Tuesdays through Thursdays tend to be a lot of focus on our L10 meetings that I mentioned earlier, where we meet with the different departments, maybe sync up on outstanding issues, try to, you know, collaborate on some of our rock, some of our goals, and, really just hey, what are you running into? What are some things we need to be aware of? 

 

00;16;00;27 - 00;16;21;24 

Unknown 

Let's cascade information throughout the company so that we can all anticipate, you know, when something happens. That's a pretty typical day. Awesome. And shifting a little bit to technology and your use of NetSuite since Packer Fastener is a NetSuite customer. First off, just how would you summarize how Packer Fastener uses NetSuite? Yeah, I would, I would say that. 

 

00;16;21;24 - 00;16;44;27 

Unknown 

Net suite is our one source of the truth. We've got all of our financials, our inventory, sales, and purchasing all that detail lives in that suite. We've got about 400,000 items in our inventory. So the nuts and bolts and, you know, all the different equipment or, product that we buy installed for our customers. Any given point, there's about 30,000 of them on the shelf and our different distribution centers. 

 

00;16;44;27 - 00;17;06;06 

Unknown 

So that's a lot to manage. And that suite really gives us a good way to harness all that. We use the CRM functionality for maintaining our customer relationships with all of our sales orders and NetSuite, which flows to the WMS Warehouse Management. When the orders get picked, we use the purchasing modules, for ordering stock from our vendors. 

 

00;17;06;08 - 00;17;29;02 

Unknown 

Of course, all the financial operations in the back end. So we integrate interface to our. We have a third party transportation management system where our freight business manages all of their load data. We built an interface between that system and that suite. So there's data flow in there. We use some API integrations with a number of SuiteApp integration plans. 

 

00;17;29;04 - 00;17;49;25 

Unknown 

So our sales tax, our corporate card spend management, we use U.P.S. for our shipping. So it's really that sort of hub where all the data gets collected, the different processes almost entirely will flow soup to nuts through NetSuite. So it's really just that, that main core system or not. Yeah. So obviously you're using that to it for, for a lot of stuff. 

 

00;17;49;27 - 00;18;13;03 

Unknown 

Any particular features or modules that stand out to you as especially valuable or maybe like better than, systems you've used in the past, something that NetSuite does better kind of pleasantly surprised you. Yeah. I mean, certainly for the cloud and the availability on a cloud solution, there was something that we certainly hadn't had here in or in my prior, you know, points in my career was the main ERP system, a cloud solution. 

 

00;18;13;06 - 00;18;33;19 

Unknown 

So that's really helpful for us, the sort of the App Store functionality. Like I mentioned, the suite apps, we can take a third-party solution, kind of like we would load an app on your phone, you can load these apps. And this prebuilt customization, probably the most impactful I think is shortly after we went live with our implementation, we started to poke around. 

 

00;18;33;22 - 00;18;56;19 

Unknown 

It was probably 15 months ago. How can we start to utilize or play in this artificial intelligence, machine learning space? We're looking at other tools that weren't in NetSuite, but really sort of focused on that specific niche. And around that time, I actually had attended SuiteWorld and, in Las Vegas and heard the pitch on NetSuite Analytics Warehouse. 

 

00;18;56;21 - 00;19;27;22 

Unknown 

So signed onto that about a month later, ran through the implementation. We aligned with that earlier this year, and that's been really helpful for creating visuals on our business. Analyzing budget versus actuals, doing KPI analysis. It's easy to harness that data quickly, build on a, you know, whether it's a graph or, you know, a table or just, massaging all this data and sort of ad hoc, but also creating these regular, repeatable analytics that will pop up. 

 

00;19;27;22 - 00;19;49;21 

Unknown 

And just recently in the, the, the ability to take those graphs or KPIs and drop them on your NetSuite home dashboard that then it was made available for us. So that's been a really nice add on. In addition to the core of. NetSuite, it's giving us we're using some predictive capabilities in there focusing on potential customer churn. 

 

00;19;49;24 - 00;20;13;23 

Unknown 

We're looking at inventory stock outs, trying to just starting to scratch the surface on pricing optimization within the tool. So, it's been a great fit for us for a lot of different reasons. NetSuite by Oracle. The number one cloud financial system is everything you need to grow all in one place. Inventory, HR, and more to make better decisions faster so you can do more and spend less. 

 

00;20;13;28 - 00;20;19;05 

Unknown 

See how at netsuite.com/pod. 

 

00;20;19;08 - 00;20;51;24 

Unknown 

And just digging into a little bit, would you say it's giving you access to analytics you simply didn't have before? Is it just easier to get, you know, the numbers that you already cared about? Yeah. One of the cool things that the NSA, of course, you know, pulls over data from NetSuite ERP, but it also will allow you to either upload like a large just a CSV upload you can or there's connectors with, I don't know, dozens and dozens of different solutions like Google Analytics or Salesforce or, you know, lots of different pieces that will just connect up the box. 

 

00;20;51;27 - 00;21;12;01 

Unknown 

So it allows you to pull non-NetSuite data and then merge all of that together in your analytics. So besides, you know, we wanted a lot more budget to actual KPIs and kind of graphs and visuals in NetSuite. So that gave us the ability to do that where we're incented in the company to how we're doing against our budget. 

 

00;21;12;01 - 00;21;29;16 

Unknown 

So of course that's a big focus. People log in every morning. That's one of the things they want to see. And that Suite Analytics warehouse gave us that capability to build those visuals. Again, doing that ad hoc analysis where you say somebody is asking me this question or maybe a business user has a particular question that's very deep in the data. 

 

00;21;29;16 - 00;21;49;06 

Unknown 

They can really just take NSA and build out a visualization quickly. Just kind of drag and drop all the data, run some filters on it. And also you've got this really insightful analysis that you can use to manage your business. Yeah. That's awesome. And zooming out a little bit from that suite and just thinking about technology, more, more big picture. 

 

00;21;49;11 - 00;22;16;11 

Unknown 

What role do you see technology playing in the overall success of a packer fastener? I think we're looking at continuing to find ways that we can harness the data. We really want to be more efficient. We want to continue to grow significantly, but we recognize that we can't just hire people, so we can't hire people in a linear fashion compared to what our revenue growth is, particularly in our back-office functions. 

 

00;22;16;11 - 00;22;37;20 

Unknown 

We need to be more efficient. We need to support the growth of that business without hiring an army of people to do it. And so our technology, roadmaps really focus on that. The efficiency artificial intelligence is starting to play a role in all that. And digging into AI specifically, how do you see that changing the finance function specifically? 

 

00;22;37;20 - 00;22;58;17 

Unknown 

Is it just a way to, like you said, not grow headcount at the same, same rate as the business is growing? That's definitely part of it. Yeah, for sure. And it doesn't just extend to the finance teams we're finding. I mentioned earlier some of these predictive models. So the customer churn we can get after well, we noticed this customer maybe is trailing off on some of their purchasing. 

 

00;22;58;19 - 00;23;17;16 

Unknown 

We can get that in the hands of a salesperson that can then reach out to the customer and see if there's any issues that we need to address. Or is there an opportunity. Maybe there's some variation in their business. There's, again, proactive nature of the AI allows us to do some of that. There's potential, inventory stock outs. 

 

00;23;17;16 - 00;23;32;21 

Unknown 

So but based on your trends, it, you know, we expect that you will need this much inventory on your shelf based on the lead times. It looks like there might be a stock outs. You might want to advance that purchase another 2 or 3 days earlier so that you're not without the stock for your customers. So there's some of those. 

 

00;23;32;27 - 00;23;55;03 

Unknown 

Obviously the efficiency is important, but also then trying to be more strategic about how we approach a customer or a purchase that can really enhance us. So I want to move into some questions about kind of talent in the workforce as, as your CFO. So you know what that looks like in the finance function. One thing that's obviously been happening for quite a while at this point is more automation across accounting and finance. 

 

00;23;55;05 - 00;24;19;16 

Unknown 

What do you think the future of these functions will look like with increased automation, AI, all these things that are either here or coming on the horizon, I have a standing topic in, in my financial term where I asked my team to bring in items they've seen. It's been out there for about 5 or 6 months now. I've had this on a standing agenda item, and I'm asking them to bring in what have you seen in the AI space? 

 

00;24;19;18 - 00;24;52;20 

Unknown 

How is that something that will impact either our day-to-day jobs or things even outside of AI, outside of work or, you know, your personal life? How was I going to impact those? So the goal that is really twofold. One, that we can be on the forefront and maybe capture something that's new out there that that really might enhance our business, make us more profitable, more efficient as a team, but then additionally trying to get folks comfortable with this instead of being scared about this, this coming wave of artificial intelligence or technology is what's embrace it. 

 

00;24;52;20 - 00;25;23;24 

Unknown 

Let's see what it's doing. Let's make ourselves better. Let's not be surprised by these advancements here. And in the extent that we're looking at signals out there, we can again be positioned to not just be afraid of what it's going to do, but capitalize on it. And so your thought is, if your staff can kind of understand on this and what it can do for them and how it could help them, that can help lessen some of that fear about what does this mean for my job or my future 100%, you know, and that's you're going to have that a lot of times with any kind of change management, this is 

 

00;25;23;24 - 00;25;56;04 

Unknown 

obviously a huge impact. And, you know, if you're reading a lot of the information out there, it's not farfetched to think that a lot of this will, you know, replace some of the work that we do today. And I expect it will. But trying to be intentional about that and assessing that and then talking about it as a team, and you can say, hey, look, this is going to do maybe our variation in our flux analysis on our financials, maybe there's a generative tool out there that will allow us to just do that by typing in what happened with our, you know, with our pal this month. 

 

00;25;56;09 - 00;26;17;25 

Unknown 

That takes away some of the work that somebody is doing. But then we can redeploy that time into other areas. Maybe higher value, more important, building on the profitability of the business. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. As you think about the transition and things changing, what skills do you think are really going to become must haves for people that that work in finance or accounting? 

 

00;26;17;28 - 00;26;47;10 

Unknown 

Yeah. Analytical skills. And I mean that might seem like an obvious answer because a lot of financial work has always been analytical. But the folks that have been in financial functions that have just been used to, I'm going to enter this transaction and I'm just, you know, I'm going to type in a transaction and I'm going to you know, write a manual check, you know, like a physical check, things like that, that they've been in this, you know, maybe low tech financial roles, really embracing an analytical mindset, intellectual curiosity. 

 

00;26;47;10 - 00;27;11;15 

Unknown 

So again, mentioned, you know, what's going on in the AI world, but approaching it with, you know, curiosity instead of fear? I think those are really important creativity to craft prompts when you're trying to utilize, like an AI tool, like a, you know, chatbot or Claude, even with a NetSuite, some of the generative AI functions, how can I max Mize the information that this tool is going to present for me? 

 

00;27;11;15 - 00;27;43;01 

Unknown 

And if I need to be creative about how I craft that question or that query to the model, you need that that intellectual curiosity, the creativity. They're really focusing on efficiency, mastering data. Right. Anybody who's got a really strong background with Excel or if the, you know, sort of the advanced features of Excel, a lot of the formulas and data manipulation people that have those skill sets will translate well into the world, I think, you know, capitalizing on the efficiency of AI. 

 

00;27;43;04 - 00;28;03;10 

Unknown 

So you mentioned earlier how competitive it is to get hired at your company. When you're looking to hire someone in your department, in the finance department, what are the skills you're looking for? Is it that same stuff you just mentioned? Pretty much. Are there any talent gaps you see right now that you're like this is a priority for me because this is a gap I need to fill in my broader team. 

 

00;28;03;13 - 00;28;28;15 

Unknown 

Yeah. There's a little bit of as we increase, there's again, as we continue to grow in our geographic footprint, there's some skills that will help support that. So a multi-state payroll, multistate, you know, sales tax, things like that are important. But ultimately, I think somebody who's proactive versus reactive is important as I'm analyzing, you know, if I needed to hire somebody MIT team, I'd rather not report yesterday's news. 

 

00;28;28;15 - 00;28;53;15 

Unknown 

I'd rather influence and inform decisions as they're being made instead of just sort of, you know, scorekeeping and distributing the box score at the end of the game. I want to be able to influence. Those are really skills I would love to see in folks that are looking at hiring. So, you know, whenever we talk about the workforce and talent and finance, it just feels like it always comes back to the shortage, because for years now, there's been a shortage in this, this field. 

 

00;28;53;15 - 00;29;10;09 

Unknown 

It's obviously something people talk about a lot when it comes to this. Are there any strategies, or approaches that you've found to be really effective in attracting and retaining, the right people that are going to help, you know, help your business do the things it needs to do and deliver real, real value as a department. Yeah. 

 

00;29;10;09 - 00;29;29;16 

Unknown 

When I think about why people leave jobs or why they stay, I think certainly, you know, a balance of everybody's got a personal life and nobody wants to, you know, work 20 hours a day. So if some of that is just sort of basic, we want to make sure that people leave. We've got a pretty good rate here of folks, you know, packing up their desks by 4 or 5:00 at night. 

 

00;29;29;16 - 00;29;54;17 

Unknown 

And it's pretty quiet here. There's really not a whole lot of work on weekends, or nights. So finding that that balance, you know, a lot of these tools we talked about earlier can help manage that, I think providing opportunities for folks to grow. And in a company like ours that's growing so rapidly, there's a lot of maybe I want to switch hats, maybe I want to try a different role or a different team, you know, giving that opportunity. 

 

00;29;54;20 - 00;30;17;06 

Unknown 

For people that are there on the team here again, trying to treat people fairly, trying to have a fun working environment, trying to compensate people, fairly. All of those are important, I think, to retaining and attracting folks on my team. And do you feel like the automation and embracing technology that you've talked about that can also help pull people in because they're like, oh, I'll be doing more exciting work here. 

 

00;30;17;06 - 00;30;37;02 

Unknown 

This sounds more interesting than my last job, because, you know, I won't have to do a lot of these manual, mundane things that, that I might have had to do at my last company. Do you feel like that can help pull people in? Yeah. I mean, those are the people that are really embracing that are definitely people that that I would love to hire because they're going to just buy right into the approach out of the gates. 

 

00;30;37;02 - 00;30;56;17 

Unknown 

Right. They're going to be hungry for it. They're going to, you know, look, in that that intellectual curiosity that I mentioned, they're going to embrace that as a way to enhance their career and the company. And then to wrap up here, I wanted to ask some questions about 2025. It's right around the corner. And we'll be 2025 when, when people listen to this. 

 

00;30;56;24 - 00;31;19;28 

Unknown 

But as as a CFO, what are some of your top priorities for 2025? So we continue, as a business, we have very significant growth plans for 2025. We recently wrapped up our strategy sessions, where we establish our three-year plan and some very high-level goals for 2025. So, again, as you and I are speaking here, we're working through our budgeting process. 

 

00;31;20;00 - 00;31;39;17 

Unknown 

And that includes, you know, mapping out we have really large revenue growth and that needs to be supported with a lot of different expansions in various parts of the business. So maybe it's hiring folks, maybe it's, finding new geographic locations and supporting that. So a lot of that is, you know, cash is a big thing for us. 

 

00;31;39;19 - 00;31;59;26 

Unknown 

So in 2025, we're actually rolling out additional cash management tools, both things with the Net suite. You know, we're looking for some of the some of the enhancements that are probably be there early in 2025, but also some of the, maybe offline models that we're doing to capture some of the not just what is cash flow like for the next week or two, but what does cash look like? 

 

00;31;59;29 - 00;32;21;25 

Unknown 

You know, for the next three years? And as we anticipate what our capitalization models are, we want to make sure that we've got good numbers and then try to hold ourselves accountable for them. I mean, cash, cash and cash flow is important for obvious reasons, I guess. But why? Why is that so central to your mission? Is it thinking about how much cash are we going to have to put back into the business, and then what can we potentially do with that? 

 

00;32;21;25 - 00;32;37;16 

Unknown 

Is it that type of thinking that that drives, you know, the focus on, on what does our cash flow look like, not just like you said in the near term, but years down the line. So interest rates, of course. Yeah. Serve as more of an issue over the last two years. Right. So that's, that's a big portion. 

 

00;32;37;17 - 00;32;55;19 

Unknown 

If you're going to borrow money to fill your growth, you're going to be paying, an interest on that or anticipating additional drops in the interest rates here over the short term. But we expect higher rates for longer. So focusing on efficient use of our cash really will help us, be able to, to take all of the growth that we want. 

 

00;32;55;19 - 00;33;12;29 

Unknown 

So when you think about when you grow a business as fast as we're growing, we have, you know, a significant growth in our receivables. And then, of course, with the interest rates, you know, a lot of customers want to take longer to pay you. So you're fronting on a lot of cash to your customers. And of course, the vendors don't love you paying them longer. 

 

00;33;12;29 - 00;33;37;29 

Unknown 

So you have to manage that, that the difference here between fronting cash out for receivables and paying your vendors, there's a, you know, a delta there. So it's the cash conversion cycle. It's inventory. As we expand the number of offerings in our catalog, but also we're popping up different regional distribution centers. And each one of those requires, you know, an initial investment for shelving and the, you know, initial inventory in those locations. 

 

00;33;37;29 - 00;34;06;13 

Unknown 

And then as their customers grow within those distribution centers, their inventory grows. So all of that is cash that you front in out there too. So really as you think about growing a business, cash really is key. You really can't grow without that positive cash flow. So focusing on that as the data and the tooling gives us insight into that allows us to maybe measure and be intentional about how we grow, where we grow, when we grow. 

 

00;34;06;16 - 00;34;23;11 

Unknown 

It's all just tied together. And as you think about the new year, are there any particular challenges, or just things that you're, you know, trying to proactively keep a keep a close eye on that you kind of had top of mind of, here's things we need to look out for. I guess as, as we start the new year. 

 

00;34;23;13 - 00;34;42;04 

Unknown 

Again, I'm really focused on the, a lot of the tariffs. So as we're recording this, we're just after the election here. And so there's, you know, a lot of conversation around will there be a lot of tariffs, particularly as we move into 2025 that will significantly impact, a lot of our inventory that we purchased, you know, originates overseas. 

 

00;34;42;06 - 00;35;17;01 

Unknown 

So we're analyzing how that can impact our business. Again, we expect that there will be a healthy growth in the economy in 2025. We'd love to ride that wave as much as we can. We find our value proposition to our customers is something that continues to resonate with. A lot of our Midwest work ethic is something that our customers really appreciate and value, and so trying to capitalize on that to one make our customers more successful, provide opportunities for our employees, and then to grow our business, our more profitable growth in our business. 

 

00;35;17;03 - 00;35;34;24 

Unknown 

Those are all very, very important to us in 2025. So we've talked about AI quite a bit today, but, I want to specifically ask about reskilling and upskilling with your workforce. Are there any plans to try to do some of that, try to, you know, up the skills of your workforce to adapt to these new tools, this new environment? 

 

00;35;34;26 - 00;35;56;17 

Unknown 

And what might that look like if you do have some of those initiatives? Yeah. So some of it's a little more organic with that. I mentioned we're talking about AI tools within my team. And so a lot of that as we just, we just onboarded a new vendor, Bill, tool where, you know, does the OCR captures the bill, and, you know, there's artificial intelligence baked into that, right? 

 

00;35;56;17 - 00;36;14;11 

Unknown 

It's analyzing. You can link a vendor bill with the purchase order, analyze all the line items on there. So having the team embrace that is really just it's not like an intentional you're going to go to this course to learn about this. You spend some time onboarding, maybe working with the vendor to kind of get set up there. 

 

00;36;14;11 - 00;36;36;15 

Unknown 

But then it's, you know, small little day to day wins to capitalize on that. But then, you know, supplement all of that is focusing on what are some other tools out there, maybe, you know, how are you using maybe something like Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT to enhance what you're doing on a day-to-day basis? Those are specific areas we'd like to focus on as a team. 

 

00;36;36;15 - 00;36;59;11 

Unknown 

We're really, again, trying to stretch Microsoft's Copilot. We're looking to stretch NetSuite’s AI tools. How can we use those? And as we learn about opportunities, it's sometimes it's a deep dive to say, okay, this is what it's doing. Maybe you're sitting around pinging ideas about, creative ways to use this new tool. Within our team, we have an AI think tank that meets, twice a month to talk about, hey, what are we seeing out there? 

 

00;36;59;11 - 00;37;17;13 

Unknown 

And this is more of a leadership strategic level, but what are we seeing out there in the AI space? Are there things that we need to, we're looking at creating an AI one on one course where we can deploy that out to our teams and have them just to start to understand some of the key terms concepts, look for them to embrace that. 

 

00;37;17;15 - 00;37;35;07 

Unknown 

I think that's enterprise wide, a great way for us to look to employees, to embrace it. Yeah, some really good, good ideas there. On, on what you can do to try to bring your workforce up to speed. So another thing that people have been talking about for years is the CFO role becoming more strategic and just more prominent. 

 

00;37;35;07 - 00;37;53;22 

Unknown 

Right. It's a more, I think, a more prominent position in the C-suite. What are you doing or what are you maybe focused on continuing to do to increase alignment and collaboration with other leaders across other departments in the business? Yeah. So, we had a strategy session. We again, we have an annual strategy session, like a two-day session. 

 

00;37;53;25 - 00;38;10;18 

Unknown 

And it was in the fall of 2023 and had a really a great conversation with the rest of the leadership group. And they said, some of the folks that made it'd be really helpful to meet with you on a, on a one on one basis, on a regular cadence. So we set those up, you know, late into 2023. 

 

00;38;10;18 - 00;38;25;19 

Unknown 

You know, we've been on and essentially for about a year now. And that's a great way for us to what we'll meet in. We call them huddle rooms with a TV. And you have a screen and you start to look at some of the data, some of the financials you start to talk about, hey, how are you seeing this evolve? 

 

00;38;25;19 - 00;38;51;12 

Unknown 

Or you just really that, that really open dialog? I think we all approach those conversations with some humility to say, you know, is there things in my team that we can that we can improve on to make ourselves more efficient? But and sometimes it's taking, you know, past experience where I've seen this work at other companies and maybe introducing that to some of my peers as a way to make their teams more efficient or focus on, you know, tracking against schools, things like that. 

 

00;38;51;19 - 00;39;12;21 

Unknown 

So everybody kind of brings that humility to the conversation. You meet on it regularly. And I think, it's been really fruitful. It's been really good for us to have those connections. Can you share any specific benefits or results of like, you know what, what's come out of those conversations and that kind of intentional collaboration? Yeah. So things like, metrics, you might know. 

 

00;39;12;21 - 00;39;38;26 

Unknown 

So we really track statistics in the organization. And that was something really that was fairly new when I joined the company is let's specifically track certain key metrics. You know, the focus on like the number of, sales folks that we have on our team or just the number of employees in general. And how are we managing or assessing maybe our revenue per employee or revenue per salesperson, or maybe our profit per our efficiency within certain functions in the team? 

 

00;39;38;26 - 00;40;03;23 

Unknown 

You know how effectively are we utilizing the workforce? Those are all areas that we've gotten a lot of traction on, and not just measuring what it is today, but maybe we set a plan. And if we want to meet this particular budget objective, we need to stick to a particular plan and timeline. So maybe we hold off on hiring another person because we don't necessarily have the revenue to support that. 

 

00;40;03;23 - 00;40;22;12 

Unknown 

And just a lot of really good dialog to set a plan, monitor against it and then take action. And when it comes to technology, any specific technology initiatives that you have in mind or at least are considering for 2025, or any goals for what you want, maybe existing technology to be able to do in the next year? 

 

00;40;22;15 - 00;40;42;15 

Unknown 

Yeah, we are on the front end of implementing an EDI solution, which is, not exactly groundbreaking technology, but for us, it's important, as we're hearing a lot of our customers that are looking for that as a way to, again, be more efficient on their end, you know, provide more timely, consistent data flows. So that'll be an initiative or using one of the. 

 

00;40;42;15 - 00;41;08;07 

Unknown 

NetSuite called plug ins to utilize that EDI. We think that could really be an improvement for us and for our partners. Great. And, Brian, as we wrap up here, any final thoughts or takeaways for other CFOs, for aspiring finance people, for anyone out there trying to run a business successfully? Gosh, I don't know that I have the perfect wisdom, just humility. 

 

00;41;08;10 - 00;41;36;25 

Unknown 

Intellectual curiosity. Those are key attributes of a finance leader. And just trying to focus on people and efficiency. I think those are going to serve any, any CFO. Well, awesome. Well, thanks so much for the time, Brian. I really appreciate it. You bet. And thanks. I always find it fascinating to hear about the inner workings of a fast growing, highly successful company such as Packer Fastener, and we're so lucky that Brian was willing to provide that peek behind the curtain. 

 

00;41;36;27 - 00;41;56;28 

Unknown 

I think there's a lot of business leaders who could learn from the framework that's powered Packer Fasteners’ rise the intentional approach to setting and then tracking strategic goals with the help of a coach is one part of the business approach that could help a lot of different companies, but I want to thank Brian for joining us on this episode of the podcast. 

 

00;41;57;01 - 00;42;24;13 

Unknown 

I also want to thank our editing crew at Oracle, and as always, all of you, for tuning in. If you want more episodes just like this one, make sure you subscribe to our channel and give us a rating and review. Thanks so much and talk soon! You just listen to the NetSuite Podcast. Be sure to tune in every week with more NetSuite developments, stories and insights into the benefits of one integrated system to help you run your business.