A year into the role – CFO Tom Siviter has introduced new systems of which are now fundamental to fine-tuning CEM’s future performance.
Tom’s career background
Tom initially started out as a qualified accountant having studied CIMA and found his feet within a FP&A position for Williams Lea who are part of the DHL supply chain. This role gave a him a broad overview of budget planning and company performance from the top level looking down. His next step was as a finance manager for DHL at site level, crucially to understand the fundamentals from the bottom up of which included; payroll, debits, credits and managing cashflow. Once Tom had obtained a 360-degree view of financial accounting, he left for experience within a different industry and this time with a perspective on computer hardware and software product. Revenue recognition was a new learning with the introduction of SaaS licensing. With this came a large budget structure due to different departments and offices worldwide, here Tom worked closely with the MD and senior management team. This role at Omnico laid the stepping stones for overseeing a new system integrations process as the business moved to SAP. Tom efficiently facilitated the transition by conducting internal workshops to support the finance department’s migration. Additionally, he assisted in the staff learning process across the entire company. Tom very much enjoyed this new side of his role which developed into a more specialised role of technical accounting, further evolving into an implementation of adaptive insights a specialised driver based budgeting and reporting cloud system. These were used for forecasting, budgeting and planning and set the business up for substantial growth. Tom eventually left the business in 2017 as FP&A manager.
Tom worked as a consultant for a year to handle a couple of contracts that he had become headhunted for through previous work colleagues. It was during this period when he was approached by CEM.
Tom’s first appointment as a consultant was aiding CEM to address company processes surrounding ‘procure to pay’, which helped him to demonstrate his value and experience. After 9 months and as the contract was concluding, Tom was approached by Kainos for a consultancy role where he would be implementing adaptive insights for clientele across multiple industries. This full-time opportunity was too good to turn down for Tom as it opened doors to a range of different businesses to understand their best practices with budgeting and strategy. Tom particularly enjoyed his focus on pharmaceutical, gambling, manufacturing and retail businesses, whilst analysing best working practices across multiple industries. Tom could now take that knowledge with him for the benefit of future clientele under his new role of CFO.
Joining CEM 2024
Now in his mid-thirties and settled with his wife and young family in the Hampshire area, Tom wanted to work with a growing company where his new-found expertise could be implemented and deliver considerable value and impact. Still in contact with CEM, Tom opened the conversation with the leadership team seeking a permanent role and the chance to further deliver for the business. Due to previous success, dedication, work ethic and how well he had previously fit within the business, Tom was appointed as CFO and now had the opportunity to deliver his strategy which he presented in the interview process.
His first appointments were a change of ERP and CRM systems, of which neither are straightforward or simple tasks for a very operational business. Research and testing were fundamental to analysing potential output and an implementation strategy of each system. Having gained an in depth understanding of existing processes, Tom was able to structure the historic data for migration and maximum insight. During a migration process, the value of all potential historical data can often be overlooked or easily disregarded, a pitfall that Tom was keen to avoid. This is particularly true when data extraction is limited or unsuccessful in maintaining format integrity. Once the successful migration was completed, this broader dataset now facilitates the decision-making process for future initiatives.
“The smaller dynamic of an SME often enables quicker decision making and that really appealed to me, especially as I could be agile and help the business with my value on a faster timeline. I had noticed in larger businesses the pitfalls of strategic drift, so I was confident that I could deliver for CEM with the projects solely on my shoulders.”
Tom feels that the biggest win to date is that the software has enabled tracking on a macro level without having to dedicate more time and manual resource to that process. Drilling down on this further he states that “now that automation is enabled it’s a powerful tool that can deliver instantly. A lot like how AI requests can cut hours of production time down to seconds, although as the input is human, results are sensible and accurate. Of course, the real secret behind this is staff adapting to the new UX and enjoying the ease of input.”
“When you have the capability to view a dataset at both macro and micro levels, and rapidly extract the desired insights, the possibilities are endless.”
The leadership team are now able to analyse input in a refined progressive overview, ensuring there are less errors being made throughout the business, plus they’re able to question and be hands on with management without the pitfalls of traditional monitoring.
Moving on to FY25 the business can expect Tom to utilise the new implemented systems to help with the overall business development strategy. By no means does this mean solely focused financially but also helping the senior management team with their goals, achievements and with facts, and then deliver a home-grown data driven solution. This could for example feature around how the business positions itself within the market or how it retains its talented workforce.
Tom believes that staff training and regular work events have been key to the progressive ethos that he has enjoyed and enabled him to settle well within the business. “CEM, as an SME, excels in teamwork with a proactive attitude toward all projects. Our success is a shared goal, and we celebrate achievements together when targets are exceeded. Retention is high, with many of us advancing our careers within the company. As CFO, I am excited about contributing to our future with data-driven strategies.”
