A revolution in remit | Dear CFO – it’s time to break the chains… 

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” 

~ Peter Drucker 

Progress doesn’t wait for next fiscal period 

Static funding, rigid cycles, fiscal gatekeeping … ahh the salad days of certainty; when jolly CFOs planned the budget 12 months out.  

This is still possible of course, assuming you’ve got shiny crystal balls?  

Thought not. Dynamic (sometimes known as agile) funding preps, primes and readies firms for financial decisioning in-the-moment. Instead of dancing to a tune set last year, dynamic funding means adjusting and adapting to the beat in real-time as trends, data, markets and opportunities do their thing. 

It’s the solution for our time and for the why we defer to Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.” 

CFOs’ (r)evolution in remit 

Organisations traditionally map funding cycles to reporting periods. Historically this approach bought regularity, visibility and control. Yes, it nixed opportunism and spontaneity but that was a small price to pay for relative certainty.  

Huh. Remember certainty? 

Given the speed of change static finance isn’t now fit for purpose. Rigid forward planning creates a deep and deepening back hole between what the business needs and what the business planned to need. Between forecasts and results. Between make-believe and reality. 

See, business is happening now. By switching to a model which moves resources towards opportunity and value, now, firms can finally concede that which was once unconcedable …  

Progress doesn’t conform to arbitrary timescales.  

At the outset dynamic funding looks like a major gear shift. Recasting the gatekeepers and critics of extra-curricular spending as proponents of it? Converting budgets into living, breathing strategies that favour opportunity, value and growth? It’s a hell of a memo …  

But dynamic funding puts CFOs and mobilised finance teams to work in real time. Putting all that skill and expertise into the live game brings extra visibility and accountability into ongoing initiatives. Finance team insights can empower leaders to dynamically allocate funds, resources and attention commensurate with the value of those projects.  

In short, dynamic funding brings finance closer to the action – day by day and week by week. It’s a mindset shift away from pre-approving – sometimes many moons ago – long cycles of spend based on abstract business cases before reality proves they’re worth a damn. There isn’t time. 

We’re not in Kansas any more 

Those familiar with The Rebel Perspective series know that evolution doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Businesses have worked in static funding cycles for a lifetime hence change won’t be accomplished in one move. 

It’s a root-and-branch thing. Dynamic funding isn’t a patch fix on the old but a new playbook entirely. It’s not a quick fix. It requires governance and frameworks to hold it in place, and company culture needs to rally around it via a new mindset whereby rapidly trying, learning and, yes, failing are embraced.  

Scary – maybe. But nothing changes if nothing changes. Progress is breaching the limits of what is. We’re not in Kansas anymore.  

The benefits of dynamic funding, the 360-degree version of it, include organisational agility and the ability to rapidly respond to threats and opportunities that mightn’t be inclined to wait for next fiscal period.  

Benefits also include more (not less) accountability for outcomes. Armed with the right information and empowered to act, company chiefs can better identify the initiatives delivering value – not tick box outputs – and resource those harder, better, faster, stronger.  

Data and the dynamic toolkit 

A major variable in the mix is the data piece. Dynamic funding works in a data-driven world and firms need to ensure those mechanics are in place  

Business decisions are based on information. This fact of life hasn’t changed yet the volume, application, dexterity and 24/7 nature of data most definitely have. For dynamic funding to take root, firms must first be supremely confident in their ability to capture and analyse data. It’s the bedrock. It’s the enabler for pushing resources regardless of season or cycle.  

We’ve probably all seen it: a project flops yet it runs for six more months until funding is pulled at year end. Ditto, we’ve probably all seen the project which, though packed with genuine fire and magic, gets shelved ‘cos no one made provisions for it. There wasn’t time, resource or budget so it died on the vine.  

An outcome-based funding model is a real flip on the standard output-based model, where firms measure in length, size and quantity versus real value and promise. With dynamic funding, assuming there’s quality data underneath, teams can operate at F1 speed: think big, start small, learn fast and roll with the punches. It’s a far cry from planning a project and setting a budget months and months in advance.  

This scenario means money constantly moving around the system to fund and reward potential, performance and priority. It essentially means every pound of investment up for grabs all the time.  

Dear CFO,

The financial models and fiscal staples that got us here won’t get us there. The game has changed.  

Our organisation needs you pushing for innovation, not holding it back. We need to be agile and responsive to real-time changes in the market, but we’re hamstrung by the gods of Excel.  

We know you’ve heard of dynamic funding, and it probably sounds scary. It’s new and it’s different. It reads like losing control …  

But maybe that’s its beauty. At a certain height, business has never had control – not over people, places and things. Not over market forces and the world at large. A generation ago, we had some stability, and progress went at its speed. Static funding was the model.  

But that model can no longer keep pace. We move too fast for yesterday’s decisions to keep up with what’s relevant and what’s necessary. Ultimate control is an illusion, but dynamic funding is the best-fit financial model to maintain it in our time.  

It’s mechanisms allow us to seize the opportunities of the market; to adjust, adapt and scrutinise what we do based on merit, value and potential. To make timely decisions. To embrace failure; to embrace new en-route to progress.  

It looks like liberation from the spreadsheet strait jacket. It looks like turning risk from a threat into a catalyst. It looks like the future boldly reimagining itself. 

We’re not asking you to leap blindly. We’re inviting you to co-create a new financial narrative. Imagine a model where every pound is a seed of potential, where financial stewardship means nurturing innovation rather than constraining it. Together, we can transform our Excel columns from tombstones of past performance into launch pads for future breakthrough. 

So, join us on the dance floor. We need your moves. And we think you’ll like it, 

Sincerely, 

The rest of the business

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