“Consolidation. A lot of people don’t know exactly what it is. They think that it’s just an aggregation of numbers. Like you just add numbers, but it’s more technical than that. Most of the time when we are talking about consolidation, it’s international big groups that have subsidiaries around the world. Consolidation is the process of converting those financial statements normally built locally, because they have to be compliant with the local requirements and be compliant with the GAAP of the group.”
Charaf Bourhalla has been Head of Consolidation at Nestle Skin Health, Vimian Group and Edify Investment Partner. He holds several key certifications, including the FMVA from CFI, ACCA with a focus on IFRS, and the PMP from PMI. His posts on LinkedIn reach millions of people explaining complex topics simply such as IFRS 10 – Consolidated Financial Statements, AS 16 – Property, Plant and Equipment and AS 1 – Presentation of Financial Statements.
In this episode:
- From years of struggle, to Kimberly Clarke as a reporting analyst to entering a pharma company as business controller
- 13-year tenure as a consultant developing a deep understanding of IFRS, USGAAP, French GAAP, and IPSAS,
- 3 Jobs as Head of Consolidation including Nestle Skin Health with 70 subsidiaries around the world
- Simplifying complexities of financial consolidation and non financial KPIs
- Secrets to working with FP&A for consolidation and forecasting and building a mid-term plan
- Continual training for teams in subsidiaries
- Technology and complexity changing the consolidation game
- How Charaf called in when a company found itself consolidating more than 70 legal entities using Excel
- Not to pick consultants with partnerships with only one provider
Connect with Charaf on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charaf-bourhalla-04760a1b/
Full Transcript
Glenn Hopper:
Today. Welcome to FP&A Today, I’m your host, Glenn Hopper. Today we’re joined by Sharaf Barla, a financial consolidation and reporting expert. With over two decades of experience, Charaf has worked across Morocco, France, and Switzerland, supporting CFOs and senior leadership at some of the world’s largest organizations, including Nestle Skin Health, known for his ability to simplify complex topics like IFRS and Financial Control. Sharaf is also a lifelong learner holding certifications, including the FMVA and PMP. He’s passionate about empowering finance professionals with the tools and insights they need to excel in modern finance. Sharaf, welcome to fp a today.
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yeah, thanks. Thanks, uh, will, for having me today.
Glenn Hopper:
Well, really excited to, uh, to dive in. And, uh, first off, I’m jealous of your, uh, geography and the great places you’ve worked. So maybe if you could take us across kind of your career journey across Morocco, France, Switzerland, and take us to what led you back, uh, to consulting in your current role.
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yeah, of course. I’m located in Switzerland today. It’s like a really nice place. I’m, I’m in the French part of Switzerland, which is like, uh, near to the big lake of, uh, lemon Lake, which is like in the border with France, which is a really nice area. You have mountains and you have lake, and it’s really, really green, green place. So, yeah. Uh, quickly, uh, to give you a little bit about my, my experience and my journey. So I, I was born and grow up in Morocco until the age of 22 years old. I get my bachelor degree in Morocco, in the public university. My bachelor degree was in economics and finance. Then late 98, I moved to France for, uh, finishing my high studies because the, the French system is close to the Moroccan system because it’s French language speaking. Uh, and, uh, it’s more close.
So I went there to do my master degree, and I get my master degree in auditing, finance and, uh, consulting. And after that, my, uh, uh, professional experience, uh, started at that moment, my journey, like I can summarize it in like four steps. The, the first step, it’s like two years of struggling, to be honest. <laugh>, uh, I did after my master degree, two years of internships, three internships in three different businesses for many reasons. And one of the reasons is at that time, like when you are coming from a foreign country, uh, even if you have a master degree, you are struggling more to, to, to land a first job. So I, I, I went to some internship and I encourage, uh, like finance, uh, students, even if they don’t land a job when they go out from school, they need to start as a internship.
So you put your feet in a company, so you learn some skills, then it’ll open for you opportunities. So I did two years of internship, like nine months, six months, and six months in big international companies. And it was like very, very helpful for me because I discovered, uh, like, uh, finance, I discovered auditing. I was in KPMG audit, and I was also in a US company, Kimberly Clark, uh, as a reporting analyst. So these two years opened for me the door to enter to a pharma company at that moment, uh, as a business controller, you know, fp e it’s, it’s like a new word today that we’re using, but before it was like business controller. So I started my career in, in business control, in charge of, uh, the P&L, uh, for a, uh, animal nutrition, uh, business. Uh, and at that moment, this, this company was sold to a private equity.
And, uh, the new team, uh, the new CEO and CFO built a new finance team. So I was part of this new finance team, and I was in charge of, uh, the p and l and also for consolidating, uh, data during these two years. Uh, I started to touch consolidation and consolidation tools at that moment. And like, uh, I didn’t have any like, specific, uh, training or education on consolidation. I discovered it on, on the job. And after these two years, when I put this two lines on my CV that I did consolidation, and I worked with one of the major tools of financial consolidation, which is ACP financial consolidation tool. I started to get lots of calls and lots of opportunities asking me like to join them to do consolidation in either in big companies or in consulting companies. So I had choice at that moment, after two years, to go either to a consulting company or to integrate a big group as an internal, uh, like, uh, employee.
I started to go for consulting because I, I like consulting. This is like the second step of my career, which is like the consulting world. I stayed almost 13 years into, uh, different, uh, consulting groups, but doing the same thing, addressing the same problem problems, and, uh, helping the same, uh, clients, uh, solving the same problems. So during these three, 13 years, I can summarize this as a rich experience in which, uh, the three main, uh, subject that we, we touched with our clients, it was interim, uh, financial, uh, help, which is like big groups. They need some, uh, assistance during the closing period of time, and they need someone that is like available quickly, operational quickly, that can replace someone from the team. So you do the job as a member of the team. So this is like almost 50% of our job as a consultant.
The second part, it’s like all this, uh, like projects relating to tools, implementations, which is like financial reporting tools, implementations. So this is like big, huge project that needs people from the clients and from consultants, uh, technical and functional consultants. So I was like more on, on this functional consultants part. So we help those groups for all those steps, uh, of this kind of project, which is defining which tools, uh, defining the specifications, training the teams implementation, uh, post implementation, uh, assistance. So big projects lasting from six months to two years, sometimes for big groups. So this is the second part of what we do. And the third one is like specific project like IFRS conversion, US gap conversion, uh, when you have new IRS coming. So help clients to, to assess the impact of this new IRS and help them, uh, absorb this additional workload.
So this is like the main three aspects in which I, I, I worked for almost 13 years for big listed companies. Most of our clients, clients are listed companies in Europe or in the us And also during these three 13 years of consultants, I was both at headquarters most of the time, and also on subsidiary level or on subgroup level. So I, I saw the two sides of, of the coin, if I may say that. So this is, uh, like the main, uh, part of my career 13 years. Then for personal reason, I wanted to settle a little bit and, uh, enjoy my family because, uh, it was like a really extensive and, uh, I was traveling a lot and I was like doing like really, really big project in which, like, you are almost traveling and, uh, working many, many hours. So I start, I start to, to think about finding something in, uh, locally and integrate corporate work.
So for the last seven years or more, uh, I, uh, worked for three, uh, three, uh, companies as a head of consolidation. Uh, first one, it was a private equity in Geneva, uh, here in Switzerland, uh, for one year. And then I integrated Nestle, uh, one of the businesses of Nestle, which is Nestle Skin Health for two years and a half. And I was in charge of the consolidation. It’s, it was almost, uh, 70, uh, subsidiary around the world, uh, and, uh, almost 3 billion of, uh, of, uh, Swiss francs, uh, sales revenue, so big, big subgroup of Nestle. And we were reporting to Nestle. Then the last one, uh, as a corporate job, I was also in charge of, uh, consolidation of a pharma company here in Switzerland for two, two years. And I helped them implement, uh, a new financial and consolidation tool. Yeah, almost, uh, one year and a half now, I was like thinking about coming back to the consulting world to, to make like the circle, uh, because now I have a very clear view on the expectation, because I was also on my last jobs working with CAFOs and feeling what are the struggles for this kind of, uh, jobs.
And with my background, I can feel that I’m legitimate today, uh, to bring this added value and bring some practical help for, for, for companies in, in, in that space. So this is like in, in summary, uh, my background,
Glenn Hopper:
There’s a lot to unpack there, but the two areas I wanna, uh, track on. Uh, first I wanna, um, talk about consolidation because it’s a niche area of finance, but it’s, it’s vital and you’ve spent so much of your, your career really becoming an expert there. So if, if you could just kind of break down, like how do you simplify the complexities of financial consolidation for your teams and clients and, and your approach there. And, and I wanna hear more about your work in that space and how that’s been, been your primary focus. That’s fascinating to me.
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yes, yes. Uh, definitely. This is one of the reasons also that I wanted to, to come back to the consulting, because I, I have like, activity of consulting and also I try to share my knowledge with, with, with like mainly new finance professionals and to give them little bits, some, uh, advices and to make, uh, them, uh, know better this, this function, because I discovered on the, on, on the job, but you don’t have a lot of training education specific to consolidation, to be honest. That’s why you have this question, because you, I know your background, Glen. You are, you are a CFO, you worked for many groups, startups, but consolidation, a lot of people don’t know exactly what it is because they, they, they think that it’s just an aggregation of numbers, like just you add numbers, but it’s more technical than that. And it’s accounting.
It’s like a niche in accounting, because we use accounting. Becau, because we, because we use financial statements of, of subsidiaries, because most of the time when we are talking about consolidation, it’s like international big groups that have subsidiaries around the world. And the consolidation, it’s the process to consolidate, make the conversion of those financial statements that are nor normally built locally, because they have to be compliant with the local requirements locally.
For example, in the us, uh, Latin America, Morocco, everywhere in the world. And then you have to convert all those numbers. You have to be compliant or with the gap of the group, because if the group is listed in the us, it’s US gap. So even if you are in whatever you, you need to have like a double reporting. You have the reporting for your local requirements, and you have the reporting to the group.
So you need to have both skills and both knowledge. And also you have a la layer of transaction elimination, intercompany elimination, which is like, sometimes it’s, it’s gonna be like easy when you, you, you are telling that you, you need to, to, to eliminate internal into transactions. But when you have like big groups like Nestle or whatever, it’s like a very, very huge volume of transaction that you need to eliminate. It’s not only sales or, or, uh, intercompany, uh, like loans, or it’s more than that. You have dividends, you have a lot of technical issues, and also you have all these IFRS adjustments that you need to put on, on the top of that in quick, like deadlines. Because as you know, now, there is a big pressure on deadlines. You, you need the, the, the groups need to produce their numbers quickly. Not only p and l, but all, all of you.
It’s not only revenue or EBITDA or adjusted ebitda. They would like an aggregated financial statement, p and l balance sheet, cash flow on a monthly basis, monthly, quickly, monthly. So they can take decisions. And this is like the financial part, but <laugh> in consolidation also, we have non-financial KPIs to consolidate. And, you know, with all this requirement now with ESG environment, su societal and governance, uh, reporting that is now mandatory in many jurisdictions. Uh, we have more to report and more to, to consolidate as well. And what I wanted to highlight also, Glen, because all people think about consolidation only, uh, talking about actual numbers or like the, the past and the present, but also forecasting because, you know, our friends from fp a, because I work with FP&Ateams in hands in hands, they need to consolidate budget. They need, they need to consolidate, uh, forecast, they need to build mid midterm plan, which is three years, five year projections.
And they, we are using the same tools to consolidate, and we need to help them consolidate those numbers because it’s not only, uh, allow revenue or gross margin, but you need to consolidate everything. But when you have like IFRS adjustments, you need to give them what is the impact, the forecasted impact of the I ifs adjustments as well. It’s not only you go to the sales department, they give you what is the forecast of the sales, and it’s done. You need also to think about the balance sheet and the other things. So that’s why consolidation is really, really important. But the problem, it’s like the light, it’s not put on this, this function. People don’t know this, this function as they should. And, uh, it’s not attractive because the expectations are high. The technical skills, uh, demanded for this kind of job is very high. And also the turnover is high because people sometimes go to consolidations stage 3, 4, 5 years, and then they go for another finance departments. So there is a big turnover. There is a shortage in this, in this, uh, function. But I really encourage, uh, finance young professionals to go there because it’s at the heart of finance, uh, finance departments in big groups
Glenn Hopper:
To do it well. I mean, you have to understand the differences, the, the very minute differences in, in many cases, I’m sure between GAP and IFRS and whatever local yes. Practices there are. And I’m, as someone I’ve, you know, the bulk of my career was in US based, US only companies. I’ve had, had a little bit of experience with IFRS, but not enough. I would, I would need someone like you on my team to help with that. Yeah. Because I, I would be at a loss. Are there some big differences that jump out that are material, like between GAP and IFRS or particular country accounting standards that you can think of, whether it’s in revenue recognition or treatment of depreciation, or what are some big areas? Because I think a lot of us don’t even think about the differences.
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yeah. What you need to know is that, uh, US Gap and IFRS the last years are working together to converge, to have like the, the well in, in most of the, the big items in the financial statements. We have conversions. There is not a lot of, uh, differences. Uh, there, there are still, and as you know, there is this, this, this battle between US and Europe. You know, who, who will have the power at the end. It’s like, but, but like, we have more and more, uh, countries adopting IRS in the world. Like you have in Asia, you have in Africa, Latin America. So we have a lot of, uh, entities in the world, uh, working with IRS and also IRS. It’s moving like every, every two, three months, uh, you have updates on ifs. That’s why consolidation, it’s not static. You, you need to be updating yourself.
You need to be knowing and training yourself every time if you wanna be updated. The second question you asked is, I fs with like local gaps, it’s, uh, all the time, uh, IFRS with Local Gap can have like 50 to 60% common. Same treatments. I in some, in some specific areas that IRSs comes with new, new, uh, ideology or a new concept. But you are not starting from scratch. It’s like you are, uh, building IRS adjustments, uh, as in the margin of what you’ve, you’ve, you have already built on, on local consolidation. Also, uh, consolidation teams, one of the, the main, uh, tasks that they are doing on, on, on a monthly basis, it’s like to audit what is reported from local, local entities. So you have to challenge them. If you wanna challenge them, you know, you, you need to understand also their local gaps.
So, you know, IFRS, but you need to have like a broad knowledge of how they are, uh, working, uh, locally. They’re, they’re standards. So it’s really rich and technical, but it’s not that different from, from US GAAP, there is some IFRS open for you. Sometimes options, like for, for, for one topic, for example, uh, financial instruments or some, you have the option to book it this way or this way. Uh, in, in US Gap, it’s like, no, it’s a rule based, uh, gap. It’s like one plus one, it’s two. You don’t have choices. You don’t have options. So sometimes, uh, big, uh, companies like EY auditing, uh, can have even for the same topic, different views because it’s, it’s option open. So this is the main, main difference.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, it’s an amazing specialty. The most experience I’ve had with, at, I worked with a client last year. I was more on the financial operations, FP and a side doing, uh, in, in technology side, working with them. But they were, um, an Indonesian company, a shipping company that was going to, uh, go public in, in the us They had Indonesian, uh, finance rules. Yeah, some, some was IFRS. And, and then they had to get everything to gap. And it was, and it was just years and years of information that they, you know, all, everything you have to do before, uh, before filing to, to go public. And it was a significant amount of work to, to get straight with them. So I, that was about enough exposure for me. I was <laugh>, I thought, leave it to some people smarter than I am to figure this out.
Charaf Bourhalla:
<laugh>, that’s, that’s why we have, we have also one thing that I wanted to highlight. It’s like when we close the books, for example, on a monthly basis, one of the things that we do in big groups, it’s like we’re having continual training for teams in subsidiaries. Because in big groups, they have turnover either in, in, in, at their level. So they have all, all the time newcomers. So you need to, to, to train them. You need to explain them how the, the, the gaps for the group. And you need to explain to them how to report. So if you wanna, uh, build a, a win-win relationship between the headquarters and those subsidiaries, you need to train them all the time. So you, you need to train the teams in headquarters, then you need to, to train the teams in at subsidiary level for IFRS, for consolidation and for reporting, uh, matters. So this is also a good thing because you need to update yourself and you need to, to also train people. So this is a good thing for consolidation, uh, teams at, at headquarters.
Glenn Hopper:
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The other thing that you touched on, and I know we talked about this before the show as well, is the technology piece and all this. Yes. Because I think, you know, if we were trying to map all this in Excel, what a nightmare that would be or whatever. And I’m wondering, um, I mean technology just because of the complexity, uh, I’m sure that’s a big part of what you do. So walk me through maybe some of the, uh, we don’t need to identify, you know, specific tech stack or whatever, but the types of technologies that you use and, and maybe how you’ve seen it evolve over the years. And, and, uh, if there’s been some technology that’s, you know, some software that’s come out that’s made it easier. And
Charaf Bourhalla:
For big groups, like you have the, the leaders on the market, you have the us uh, leader on, on those, uh, solutions like, uh, efm, which is like Oracle, Oracle, uh, like solution, which is efm the most US companies are using this. Even some big, uh, European groups are using m and you have the, the equivalent in Europe, which is sap. Sap, you have a financial consolidation model, uh, that is, uh, used by the, the main European, uh, countries. And then you have middle, uh, class, uh, ERPs in financial reporting and consolidations that are, uh, designed for mid-size groups. You know, because like the tickets, the, the, the investment is less than the big ones. And it, they, they, they answer the requirements and the needs for those groups. So you have this kind of solutions and those solutions, uh, like the last few years, they, they are now integrating new technology like, like cloud-based, uh, technologies, uh, before you need to put like a lot of money to buy the license.
Now you’re using the software as a, as a, as a service. So you pay for what you’re using, and you don’t care about like all these, uh, how to say, updates of versions. And, you know, you, you pay what you consume and which is a good thing. And also with the, this new technology, you have now cloud-based technology. So you can have some real time, uh, reconciliations. You can, you, you know, you can connect from wherever you, you are. Uh, so it’s like the technology is helping. I know that you are also involved in this technology, AI technology. So we, we can discuss about this, but what people doesn’t understand, it’s like, it’s not the technology that solve the problems. Technology is here to help us, but we need to, to make the diagnostic for what are our problems, what are our processes. But the technology is just here to support us. Not we go for a technology because everyone is like, now putting new technology, I need to have the same technology. If it’s makes sense. It’s giving some added value to me. Yes. But it’s just not going for technology. For technology. Yeah.
Glenn Hopper:
And we talked before the show too, so a lot of your consulting work, you are helping make those technology decisions and helping Yes. Companies move across. And I think, you know, a lot of times we see the benefit of technology, but change is hard. And companies, uh, you know, don’t like to, uh, you know, if they’ve got a process and they know it works, even if they know it could be better, they’re scared of the, the change and they don’t. Last thing you wanna do is break things and not be able to do the month end close because you’ve done something wrong. Put in new tech that didn’t work. When you’re dealing with technology, whether you’re doing it internally or coming in as a consultant, and, you know, giving guidance to a client. I guess, really a two part question. So one, I talk to CFOs all the time and they say, I, I went to school for finance, not for it. I don’t know, I don’t wanna be a software guy, but you sort of have to. So the first part of the question is, what do you think about, you know, CFOs being asked to sort of become these technology experts? Well, let, let’s just go with that and then I’ll, I’ll, I’ll follow up from there.
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yeah, no, no problem. <laugh>. I, I, I, I understand that’s why I, I talked about this just before this question. Uh, this is real problem, Glenn. In finance in general, you have three, three components. And most of people, sometimes they put technology as one of the main, main components, which is not true. For me, the three, three areas is, first, it’s people. It’s like in finance, if you have, uh, people with the right skills and the right mindset. So this is the first like component. The second one, it’s processes. If you have infin in your finance team, your finance department, you have the right processes because, you know, from, from, from, uh, all the processes, from, uh, invoicing, putting, uh, recognizing transaction, uh, everything, you need to have processes. So this is the second component. Then the third component, it’s tools. And in tools, I can put in this area, all tools, all technological tools, you know, reporting tools, ERPs, ai, all that stuff.
So sometimes people, they think that the technology will solve their problems, which is not the case. The problem is like to, to to, to, to make a real diagnostic to say, uh, as a finance team or finance department, what’s our needs? What’s our needs for our manager, our de decision makers, what they need, what KPIs they, they wanna follow? Or what, what, what are the specifics of our business? What KPIs we are, we wanna follow then to see, do we have the processes to, to get the right information, accurate information on time. And with all this like process to check the information, like with, with the best practices, who do the things, who double check, who validate, you know, segregation of duties, you know, processes to, to have the right process, to have procedures, instructions, and all that stuff. Then at the end, to see what technology on the market can help us put in place what we wanna do.
So this is like the steps or the order in which we have to follow, because I, I, I always see some groups because my competitor, or I know someone that are implementing whatever tool I need to put this tool. It’s, it’s not the right mindset. It’s like what we, we, we see today, everyone is like trying to put AI <laugh>, we talk about ai, uh, intelligence, s in in the finance, and how, how it can streamline and yeah, fine. But for me, AI and all the benefit that we can have from AI today is good. But what we are talking about, we talked about this 10, 15 years ago, to say that in finance departments, people are fed up with data crunching. They need to spend more time on added value, value. And at that time, we talked about make interfaces, make, uh, like connecting ERP between themselves, uh, having some, uh, automatic, uh, works, uh, to like reduce this amount of time put on crunching data and, uh, freeing time to add value analysis. So this problem exists years before now, just ai with this, this capabilities can, can go further, but ai, it’s not the, the only, uh, like solution. Because AI also, if you don’t have, uh, the correct numbers, the accurate numbers, the the correct processes, AI will amplify that as well. So <laugh>, so this is like the, the main thing to, to, to think about it. I don’t know what’s, what you think about it.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, no, I mean, it’s funny, you and I are on the, uh, same page here, and I, I always say, I, I think that the worst thing that can happen is a really good SaaS or ERP salesman can get ahold of A CFO Yeah. And convince the CFO that, uh, they really need this particular software. And then the CFO come and say, Hey, I got, I we’re switching to, you know, whatever is our new ERP, or we’re gonna use this new SaaS tool and then realize that, uh, it’s the cart before the horse. Because like you said, exactly.
Charaf Bourhalla:
I have, I have a good one for you, uh, Glen, because, uh, one of my clients, it was like funny, uh, they asked me to come to help them, uh, because they have like, uh, big problem because they were consolidating more than 70, uh, legal entities under Excel. It’s like four business units, seven legal entities, 70 legal entities. And they were, we were doing this in Excel. When I came, they told me they, that they don’t have anyone, uh, skilled to do the project. And what was funny, they told me that they have already purchased the tool. They have the tool. <laugh> <laugh>. Yeah. So I, I was like, I was laughing. They, they, they were looking at me. They say, why he’s laughing because it’s just what you said, they are like taking it, uh, from the wrong piece. So they, they bought a technology that they don’t even know if it’s the, the good ERP for them or not.
So I was like obliged to do the, this job to make it fit in this tool. What was good for me, because, uh, I didn’t know this tool before, but that’s fine. It’s like, uh, I wanna ask your question that you wanna tell me before, uh, is a CFO or a finance guy needs to be IT expert to take project? My answer is definitely yes. Why? It’s, uh, the example that I’m talking about now is the, the pure example. I didn’t know this technology, but I know what’s the outcome that I’m expecting from a reporting or consolidation tool, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I can, this is what I did. I was with some technical guys from this provider of this tool, but I tell them, I need this and this and this, and I’m expecting even the results I need, like, for example, for this adjustments, the result, it’s to be zero at the end because I know it, it should be eliminated.
I don’t know, I don’t care how you would make the code. I don’t know how it’s running the logic behind for your ERP, but at the end, this is the, the, the, the result. So if you have the basics of finance and the basics of consolidation, and you know what, what you want, then you need to play, uh, a project manager that can pick the right skills and have a team working together, uh, from different departments. Because like those kind of projects, you need, um, you need to have to include people from tax, you need from treasury, from m and a, from other departments. So your tool is not only answering your specific needs. ’cause you need to have like the big picture, because as you know, Glen, most of the consolidation tools now are connected to this kind of data warehouse, like power BI or discount to have one source of truth.
You know? So if you do your, your project in, in the corner in your room without talking to others, when you finish your project, someone else will come to tell you, did you think about this? This is my requirement. Uh, do do, do we reconcile? Do we have the same definition of the KPIs? You know, the basics. So that’s why what I, what I wanted to highlight here is like, you don’t need to be expert in, in it on these tools, but you need to clearly know what you want. And also you have lot of consultants, uh, company, you can ask them, give them the business case, and they come to you with some presentations. With some demo. And the advice I can give you, don’t pick consultants that have like a partnership with only one provider.
Glenn Hopper:
Yes, yes. Have
Charaf Bourhalla:
To take independent consultants that can like, adapt, because it’s not all the time, even if you have the, the best tool, but sometimes for midsize groups or from some other businesses, you don’t go for big, uh, really expensive tool because it doesn’t fit what, what you need. So you, you need to have independent people that know and can have benchmark. The most important, it’s like to identify, uh, internally what the management needs, what the KPIs that we wanna follow. Then we build like a customized solution for you, for your
Glenn Hopper:
Needs. Yeah. And you know, so in my day job, I, um, I, I sell data and analytics and AI services to companies and so many companies, and it, it’s great as sort of a, a lead to get a company in the door. People went to talk to me about ai, but I’m finding, you know, they’re talking to other consultants and vendors who pretend that, uh, artificial intelligence is some magic wand that they’re just gonna wave over all the problems and fix it. And so they’re, they’re coming to me and saying, I need an AI solution. When really, a lot of times it’s just a rule-based business system. It’s, you don’t need ai, you, you need an API or <laugh>. It’s exactly. So it’s not always the most fun thing in the world, but you actually need to track your processes, your, what your people are doing. So the the flow, the process flow, and the data flow, and you start there and you figure out what are you solving for? Where are the roadblocks? Why does your current system not work? Exactly. And then, and then you pick the software. Yeah. You don’t just come in and throw the software, or we’re gonna do AI or we’re gonna do machine learning. It’s, well, do we have to go that complex? It’s, you know, try to go as simple as you can. Exactly.
First. Yeah.
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yeah. From my experience, I, like, I used, yeah, 10 of, almost 10 of, uh, reporting consolidation tools. The logic behind it is the same, you know, it’s the same. You collect data, it’s packages, you con you make conversion. You need somewhere to put exchange rates. You need to eliminate, you need to have administration tool to, uh, to give access to people. So all, like, the module are the same. Sometimes the technology is slightly different, but if you are curious, even if you don’t know this solution, but when you ask the right questions and you are really, uh, how to say motivated, you will learn. Because normally those kind of projects lasts from six to one year, six months to one year. So if you have a good consultants, they do a demo, they do some training at the beginning. So I think after 3, 4, 4 weeks, if you are curious and you really need to learn, you can learn quickly.
And you, you start to even challenge them because you will have like, just some logical questions. You tell them why your system is not doing this or this, you know, so you challenge them, and this is good because they can customize some specific things for your business if you, you ask the right question. So yeah, a definitive go for the project ticket, because you, you wanna learn, you, you are going to grow. And it’s important because you, you need to implement it correctly to have a, a, a big view on the business, on the flows, on the, in the company. You’ll be having, uh, interactions with other departments, and you, you’ll learn a lot. So I will encourage people to take this kind of projects.
Glenn Hopper:
You’re really speaking my language. I feel like we could, uh, we could talk about this all day, but I do <laugh>, I do wanna bring this, uh, bring this home. We have a couple questions that we ask all of our guests at the end, and we, you know, we dove straight into the consolidation and, and the technology, but I do, we like to, when our guests come on, uh, get a little bit of the personal side as well. So, yes. Uh, a couple of questions that we, uh, always end with is, uh, what’s something that, uh, that maybe not many people know about you? Something that, uh, isn’t, uh, apparent on your LinkedIn profile or that they couldn’t find by Googling you?
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yeah, I <laugh>, even in goog, you can’t find it, but it’s, uh, when I was in Morocco, I played football at a high level in Morocco. And I still use what I’ve learned from this experience as, as a high level, uh, like sports, uh, athlete, because as you know, uh, the expectation in finance are high, the same as when you are doing like, uh, sports at high level expectations, the pressure, uh, collaboration because football, it’s team teamwork. You know, I, I was like the captain of the, the team. Uh, so I, I was like trying to, to bring all my team to, to give the maximum of, of what they can, uh, uh, give on, on the pitch. So the same as I do with my teams in finance. And I, I’m lucky also because my, my children, I have three kids and they are doing also some sport. And I encourage them to, to do that because the values of sports, you can find them as well in, in, in corporate world. And this is like the, the, the, the only thing that people don’t see on my profile, but, uh, I’m, I like it. And this is, uh, uh, uh, to, from time to time, I, I play with some friends, but mostly I’m just following some, uh, some football on, on TV now. <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. We get, we get, you know, and we don’t have
Glenn Hopper:
Time as before <laugh>, yeah, the body breaks down, but the, the passion stays there. And <laugh>, at some point, just watching the younger people do it, it’s like, all right, you guys got <laugh>,
Charaf Bourhalla:
But, but you don’t forget it, huh? If you have the skills, you still have the skills. <laugh>. Yeah.
Glenn Hopper:
That’s great. That’s great. Um, okay, so our, every, everybody’s favorite question here. What is your favorite Excel function and why?
Charaf Bourhalla:
We share a lot of common things, Glen, but you know, we did, I think the FMVA together. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You have the FMV certification. I have it. And when I, I studied this, uh, one of the courses, it was like the, all these Excel shortcuts, like, you know, go control C, control V, you know, yeah, you have these classical ones, I’m fine, but I’m not a very, uh, believer of like all this knowing by heart, all those shortcuts, all the functions, because you, you know, sometimes in some models you have some people that put in very complicated models. So for me, excel less is more. Uh, I, I try to build something, uh, very, very, uh, easy to hand over to someone else, because I struggled a lot to come to my clients and find some really, really <laugh>, how to say, uh, very complicated Excel files. So in Excel, uh, I encourage people not try to over complicate it, but, uh, to answer your question, I like index match, uh, and, uh, SUM product because it’s like easy to to do.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And that is, that is great advice. I think, you know, as, as analysts, we love building complex models and doing crazy stuff, and like showing it to other analysts and say, you know, look what I did here with this offset and this <laugh> nested F statements. Yeah. Problem.
Charaf Bourhalla:
The problem, Glen, Glen, the problem when sometimes you go, uh, you, you know, you have this kind of CFOs, uh, that don’t care about Excel, and you come to him, you, you show him your Excel, you navigate your excel quickly and just, he can’t stop you. Can you go slowly, please? Can you show me? So it’s easy for you because you build it, but you need to be able to explain to your CFO or to others. So this is the challenge. Sometimes you overcomplicate, but it’s, he’s not gonna be happy yet, you know it, but he, he knows that it’s complicated for someone else to come and understand what you’ve done. So that’s why <laugh>, why you have this kind of CFOs that tell you, yeah, go, go really simple and, uh, explain step by step how your model is, is, is working.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And as you, you know, as you get through this, uh, you know, year after year, you realize explainability, reproducibility. Exactly. And, uh, the, you know, ’cause you, you send it around and if anybody else inputs, the chances are they’re gonna break it. And so it just, it gets to be a, a, a, a problem. So yeah, sometimes, uh, less is more with those. Yeah. That’s, that’s great insights and really, I feel like we could talk all day, but we are, uh, backed up a against time here. So I, I guess we’ll go ahead and, and wrap it up here. And I want to thank you for, uh, for coming on and, and sharing your, your insights and wisdoms with our listeners.
Charaf Bourhalla:
Yeah, thank you very much. Uh, I, I get pleasure to discuss with you Glen. Uh, thank you for this opportunity.
