C-Suite Playbooks for Managing Finances & Operations During Downturns

Economic turbulence has a way of testing every leadership team’s assumptions about cash, people, and strategy. 

In this C-suite roundtable, three veteran operators trade practical playbooks for navigating today’s inflationary, talent-scarce, capital-tight landscape:

• John Araki, CFO of RecoveryOne: A venture-backed digital-health firm scaling musculoskeletal recovery solutions.
  
• Craig Fryar, COO of BankingON: A fintech builder of mobile-banking platforms for community banks and credit unions.
  
• Raj Lakhani, CFO of CORE: A payments, revenue-management, and customer-engagement provider.

They tackle five intertwined themes:

1. Digital transformation as a recession shield: Frameworks to measure efficiency before cutting costs.
   
2. Strategic resource management: How to rebalance spend, head-count, and vendor contracts in a high-inflation, high-rate world.
   
3. Outsourcing finance: Deciding when specialist partners beat in-house builds, and why 44% of firms now outsource the function.
   
4. Pricing in an inflation era: Levers for safeguarding margin while preserving customer trust.
   
5. Capital-raising & culture: What VCs and PEs want today, plus tactics for keeping top talent motivated when money is expensive.

Gain concrete metrics to track, proven negotiation tactics with both investors and customers, and culture-first leadership tips that work whether you run a 50-person startup or a global enterprise.

Digital Transformation as a Recession Shield

When facing economic headwinds, companies turn to digital transformation to enhance efficiency and competitiveness.

Craig Fryar (COO, BankingON) shares a four-step framework for pin-pointing where technology can boost efficiency and effectiveness before cost-cutting.

1. Measure before you slash: Set unit-level metrics (support tickets resolved per FTE, funnel-to-close rate) for each department/business unit before ordering an across-the-board cut. This allows for targeted improvements.
   
2. Spot “high-pain” areas: Look for outliers that demonstrate poor utilization of people or systems.
   
3. Prioritize agility: The companies that survive headwinds are those able to redeploy resources fast.
   
4. Scenario dashboards beat static budgets: Dynamic models highlight which levers to pull (price, head-count, automation).

“You’re doing good business, you have loyal customers, you built a great culture, but how efficient and effective are you at doing these things? We won’t know until we track the optimization and utilization of every team,” says Fryar.

Strategic Resource and Spend Management

Effectively managing resources and strategic spending is crucial during times of high inflation, talent scarcity, and supply chain constraints.

John Araki (CFO, RecoveryOne) explains why cost actions must start long before a crisis hits.

• Define the hidden clause: Cost mandates always have an unspoken rider (“cut 10% while maintaining service-level X”).
  
• Not all dollars are equal: Protect spend that directly drives revenue or patient outcomes.
  
• Pre-mortems beat triage: Map worst-case scenarios early; proactive planning and scenario thinking can prevent hasty and potentially suboptimal decisions.
  
• Leadership alignment is non-negotiable: Mixed messages erode culture when asking teams to “do more with less.”

“There’s always a second part of the sentence that never gets said out loud—cut costs while still hitting goal Y—so plan for it before you’re forced to act,” says Araki.

Outsourcing the Finance Function vs. Building In-House

Competition for scarce financial talent and the need to control operating expenses are prompting many CFOs to consider outsourcing their finance functions.

A recent Consero survey of CFOs found that 97% expect their labor costs to continue rising. In terms of functional areas, 44% of companies outsource their finance function, making it the second most outsourced area after IT.

• Division of labour breeds innovation: Raj Lakhani argues specialists outperform generalists. Outsourcing specialized providers who focus entirely on specific tasks drives greater efficiency and productivity.
  
• Speed matters: A plug-and-play partner like Consero can stand up robust processes faster than an internal rebuild. Companies, particularly those with investor commitments, should outsource if it allows them to execute their strategic and annual operating plans more effectively and quickly than building in-house capabilities.
  
• Hybrid models win: Outsource transactional work, retain IP-heavy analytics. Outsourcing offers immediate strategic benefits, but companies should keep functions in-house that involve significant intellectual property.

Citing Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Lakhani notes, “People are more likely to innovate in areas where they put their whole attention to deliver a specific task, and this innovation leads to increased productivity.”

Re-evaluating Pricing Strategies

Rising input costs give executive teams unique latitude to revisit and potentially adjust their pricing strategies.

• Use inflation as a conversation opener: Customers know suppliers face the same wage and material pressures, creating an opportunity for vendors to discuss price increases.
  
• Back claims with product-level profitability analysis: Activity-based costing shows where margins are eroding and which products are truly profitable after allocating overheads.
  
• Explore multiple levers: Multi-year terms, staggered increases, or bundling can ease sticker shock.
  
• Transparency preserves trust: Sharing cost drivers maintains relationships even after an increase.

“Right now every kind of vendor can go to their clients and tell them, ‘We need to increase prices because our bottom line is getting cut.’ I think it’s a very good opportunity,” advises Lakhani.

Fund-Raising & Exit Readiness in Tight Capital Markets

The funding landscape is characterized by increased capital demand outpacing supply, particularly in venture capital, and reduced deal sizes in private equity.

PitchBook data showed VC capital demand outpaced supply by 145% in Q4 2022, while PE deal count slipped 5% and valuations fell.

• Flight-to-quality is real: Investors are re-emphasizing fundamental economic disciplines like gross margin, EBITDA, and net income, moving away from a sole focus on growth at all costs.
  
• Show line-of-sight to cash-flow breakeven (12–24 mo.): It’s the new table-stakes for term sheets; companies seeking funding need to demonstrate strong, repeatable margins and a clear line of sight toward cash flow neutrality or positivity within 12-24 months.
  
• Organic funding first: The best source of growth funding is often organic, using client-generated revenue. Venture capital and private equity are typically sought for scaling to higher levels.
  
• Understanding investor theses: PE and VC firms are seeking broader client concentration rather than reliance on a few large clients.
  
• Expensive capital and scenario planning: External funding is currently expensive and is expected to remain so. Companies should prioritize scenario-based planning to minimize their reliance on costly external capital, and prove you can thrive under multiple demand curves.
  
• Unique value proposition and Rule of 40: Companies with a unique value proposition—producing something better, cheaper, or faster—are more likely to attract funding. For potential exits, achieving or having a clear path to the “Rule of 40” (revenue growth rate + profit margin = 40% or more) makes a software company an attractive target.

“There’s a flight to quality…Investors are rediscovering items that seemed forgotten—gross margin, EBITDA, net income—and companies that can show those fundamentals will win the capital,” says Araki.

Keeping Talent Motivated Through Uncertainty

With average tech tenure hovering at 18–24 months, the panelists stress culture over compensation to keep management teams and employees motivated during economic uncertainty.

• Clarity of purpose & path: Spell out how each role ladders into the firm’s mission and future career growth.
  
• Culture is the moat: Authenticity and transparency attract candidates even when salaries trail Big Tech.
  
• Respect work-life boundaries: Flexible hybrid policies and sane after-hours expectations boost loyalty.
  
• Invest in management skills: People “leave managers, not companies”; investing in the well-being and management skills of leadership teams avoids preventable churn.
  
• Competitive benefits: Small and mid-sized companies may not match large corporations, offering benefits at least at the market median level is a necessity to attract and retain talent.

“Clarity of purpose and clarity of path keep people engaged beyond the average 18-to-24-month stint,” said Fryar.

Measuring Efficiency & ROI Without “Weaponising” Data

On tracking labor ROI, “data should give you insight—not become a weapon,” says Araki.

1. Track what matters, lightly: Three minutes a day updating project status can suffice; heavy time-sheets stifle creativity.
   
2. Data for insight, not intimidation: Metrics should guide coaching, not punish experimentation.
   
3. Look for the story, not just the spreadsheet: Stepping back prevents “falling in love with the numbers.”

Handling Under-Performance

On terminations, “do to others what you expect to be done to yourself…firing from the hip is not a good approach to management,” says Lakhani.

• Treat exits as culture moments: Respectful off-boarding reinforces values.
  
• Balance grace with speed: Lingering inaction hurts both the employee and the team.
  
• Address root causes first: Skill gaps or misalignment often precede performance issues.
  
• Golden rule test: Fire only as you would wish to be fired.

Audience Q&A Highlights

“Compensate to motivate the desired behaviours. Without the sell, everything else is detail,” notes Fryar.

• Finance vs. Sales on price rises: Align incentives so sales teams earn at least the same commission after any price hike.
  
• Key efficiency metrics: Focus on utilization, project milestones and customer-centric KPIs rather than exhaustive time tracking.
  
• Rule of thumb for layoffs: Performance plans and coaching before terminations unless errors are fatal.

Act Now, With Consero’s Help

Agile, proactive, data-driven finance leadership is the surest way to out-maneuver economic volatility. Building and maintaining that function in-house while juggling inflation, talent scarcity, and capital constraints will slow you down.

Consero’s Finance as a Service (FaaS) model gives you immediate access to:

• A fully staffed, tech-enabled finance team with pre-configured processes, best-in-class systems, and seasoned professionals who scale with your needs.
  
• Real-time analytics & scenario planning with dashboards and modeling tools that give you true visibility into financial performance.
  
• Rapid implementation: Go live in weeks, not quarters, so you can redirect internal bandwidth toward strategy and growth.

Take the next step, schedule a discovery call with Consero. You’ll leave with a concrete roadmap to fortify your finance function so your organization can thrive.