Better decisioning in the “Quote-to-cash” cycle means a lot to the CFOs of the world. Analytics-led efficiency improvements in this cycle have the potential to make bottom lines better. While modelling is a part of the analytics, translating model insights into action often remains a challenge. Debi Guha is a seasoned finance professional and she has packaged her extensive experience in managing the cash cycle into a service on the cloud. She talks about using analytics to get better at the abstruse problem of collecting and managing money.

Debi Guha, Singapore

Debi Guha is an Enterprise SAAS company founder building tailored analytic solutions for CFOs to navigate an ever-changing world. She transitioned from the private equity and private debt investing worlds to set up TwoDotSeven. Today, her company is providing AI/ML led solutions to help solve wicked problems in working capital including credit risk and demand forecasting for inventory management.

Highlights:

[00:04:00] If a company can successfully reduces net working capital, by about 5%, every year in a five year timeframe, without any external capital, you can potentially release enough cash to grow your sales four times and your valuation eight times.

[00:05:34] we are an analytics first software company. Predictive analytics creates focus, which are then fed into appropriate decisioning grids that are then actioned through our solution.

[00:22:00] We typically create multiple grids, for different customer segments for different geographies, because what the grid has to reflect is, what is the company's strategic intent?

[00:24:36] During COVID last year, most companies decided to extend, their DSO appetites, because they realize that companies paying abilities have got handicapped.

[00:30:31] the terms of engagement- the contract, what are the terms that they're signing on has a significant, bearing on what their payment behavior is going to be.

[00:39:56] today you have significantly better data and tools at your disposalto do a superior job.

[00:40:42] providing forecast is not good enough, but creating a framework to which this can be implemented becomes important.

[00:44:15] What, however changed, was the line. If the best customer was a seven day payer, he slipped to becoming a 15 day payer.

[00:44:31] last year during the pandemic, when we were creating grids, the cutoffs had to be moved higher.

[00:45:04] And short, predictable cash conversion cycles, have become paramount because of COVID because everybody was running short of cash.

Resources:

Two dot seven website: https://twodotseven.com/