The First 90 Days With a Fractional or Interim Executive
When a fractional or interim executive steps into a company, for example as a fractional CFO or CEO, the first 90 days are critical for establishing stability, clarity, and momentum. The focus is on identifying gaps quickly and taking targeted action that strengthens operations, improves financial visibility, and sets the stage for sustainable growth. While every business is different, the priorities below represent the core areas we address early to create immediate and meaningful impact.
Each business is unique and the efforts will be spent where it is needed the most. It also varies depending on the role, as CFOs focus much more on the financial aspects of the business. Fractional executives are typically more focused on improvements, compared to interim executives who are more tasked with keeping the wheels spinning during a temporary period.
With no further a due, here comes the list of what we will do in the first 90 days. The ranking is not in order of importance nor in chronological order.
1. Improve the orderliness of the books
This includes, but is not limited to having a proper balance sheet (not “homemade”) and proper audits. Discretionary spending will be made its own line-item category, to keep beneficial tax treatment while introducing transparency. The books will also be made each quarter from now on, which puts your business above its weight class in terms outside investors and buyers will look at the professionalism and orderliness.
2. Unnecessary costs will be scrutinized and cut
Many businesses keep old subscriptions and have not benchmarked pricing for major services in years. Every expense on the bank statements should be justifiable. The small unnecessary charges get cut (or put in the discretionary category on the P&L) and anything that is above 10% of the total expenditure, will get benchmarked.
3. Financial, digital and legal protection
3.1 Financial protection
No single person should have access to both the accounting records and bank accounts, unless they own the company 100%. Procedures for new suppliers and emergency payments will be implemented, requiring approval. There are multiple reasons and benefits to both of these.
3.2 Digital protection
This is exactly what it sounds like, including but not limited a short education for employees about security risks relating to email, putting all important documents and files, including a copy of the website, blue prints, P&Ls, tax returns, contracts etc in the cloud. A few select of the most important and/or sensitive documents and files will also be stored in a cold storage as an extra layer of protection, that is not accessible to employees.
3.3 Legal protection
If there is not already a holding company, this will be set up. No excess cash or major assets should be in the operational company.
4. Review of budget, with focus on marketing and sales
Many marketing channels that were profitable in the past, are not profitable anymore, many just keeps rolling the same wheels year after year. Shadowing your sales reps consistently can teach one a lot about the business. There is no one-size fits all here, some budgets probably will be cut, others increased. Some companies overspend on marketing, others underspend. One needs to get intimately familiar with the business before changing budgets.
5. Shadowing employees, Standard Operating Procedures and digitalization audit
5.1 Standard Operating Procedures:
Larger businesses generally think that smaller businesses are unorganized. Smaller businesses generally think that larger businesses have too much protocol. Both are right. Here, the key is a moderate amount of SOPs focused on the most important aspects of the business only. This is key to business continuation as employees come and go.
5.2 Digitalization audit:
Many larger businesses tie up their employees in too many different ERPs and CRMs so that their effective work time virtually gets reduced due to the heavy admin burden. Imagine a painter spending more time doing admin in 5 different computer systems, than actual painting. With that said, many smaller businesses lack the basic systems needed in order to look organized from an outside perspective. There are no one-size fits all, but in many cases, increasing the professionalism or decreasing the admin burden can be the right decision
5.3 Shadowing employes in Hawthorne style:
The Hawthorne study initially sought to find out if employees worked better with more or less lighting in the factory, but instead found out that employees worked once they were seen and acknowledged by management. Not only can shadowing them make them being seen, but many things can be learnt regarding how to improve various processes, simply by getting to intimately know said processes.
6. Delegation
The CEO or owner/manager should be enough involved in the actual day-to-day of running the business in order to intimately know his business, but he should NOT be involved in the day-to-day running of the business to the extent that the business is dependent on him. This can be a fine balancing act and it calls for delegation to employees. This can be scary, like throwing your baby out in the water, watching from a few feet away whether it swims or not, but at some point, it is a necessity for the baby to take their first swim.
7. Profit coaching
This is exactly what it sounds like, although what it entails will vary from business to business. Anyone who sells a one-size fits all without being intimately familiar with your business, should be seen with skepticism. There are no “systems that work” in that way, but there is genuine leg work that can be combined with experience. Although this is more likely to happen at the end of the first 90 days.