Credit Management magazine December 2017

ASK THE EXPERTS
What is the best way to get
Board buy in to investment
in credit department
development training and
accreditation?
AUTHOR – Phil Rice, Head of Credit at Aggregate Industries UK is this month’s expert.
Phil Rice
SIX years ago, I started on a
journey to get the Board to buy
in to invest in our department.
I initially embarked on the
process on obtaining the CICMQ
accreditation. It demonstrated
our capabilities, achievements and with
the road map and stakeholder involvement,
showed the business what we could achieve
– with the appropriate levels of investment
in training and development – in terms of
improvement in KPI’s customer service and
interaction and support for the business.
There was no budget for this initial
accreditation, but I knew that the end result
in terms of engaging our business and the
awareness and prestige that it would bring
for the department and company simply
outweighed the initial cost, so was worth
the risk. As a manager, I needed to take that
important first step as I saw this as a way of
getting more investment. This really did open
the door for a larger budget.
It is also important to make sure that the
business is aware of your achievements and
capabilities and being able to demonstrate
that with a budget for training, this investment
can be returned many times over in terms of
improved performance. Really the business
is investing in its core asset, which is people,
and with the right training and support
these people can make a huge impact on
the performance. Investing in training and
process raised our level of professionalism
and this reflected in improved results.
It is also important to discuss your
investment plans and requirements
individually with each Board member and
explain your rationale. You need to explain
where you want to be, why you need the
funding, and what this will bring to the
business. This way, when it comes to the
important budget meeting, all the groundwork
has been done and there is hopefully less of a
debate as most of Board members are already
convinced that the request for investment
is worthwhile. Oddly, another way is to
take your CFO and CEO to the CICM British
Credit Awards; they then can see first-hand
what their investment can produce and how
rewarding it can be!
Accreditation also differentiated us from
our competitors, so being able to be CICMQ
accredited is highly desirable to our business.
It also demonstrates our abilities to our
customers. This desirability for differentiation
brings along a training budget so the
investment starts to be self-perpetuating.
Any buy-in or investment won’t bring
instant results of course. Our journey took
over five years in which we transformed into
a world class Order to Cash (O2C) function.
Along the way there was a failure or two, and
we learned from these and we must not be
afraid to deal with failure. Failure can be a good
thing and is an important part of the process,
so you can understand when going forwards
how to ensure success. However, I wouldn’t
suggest here that you fail at everything as this
may have career implications for you. If you
haven’t failed at anything then you haven’t
done anything, and I guess you won’t be
needing a budget or investment!
There was no budget for
this initial accreditation,
but I knew that the end
result in terms of engaging
our business and the
awareness and prestige
that it would bring for the
department and company
simply outweighed the
initial cost, so was worth
the risk.
The Recognised Standard / www.cicm.com / December 2017 / PAGE 44