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Hey there,
Ever feel like finance is trying to land a plane while the runway keeps shifting under currency markets? With the dollar weakening and volatility stubborn, CFOs are leaning on staggered hedges, firmer supplier terms, and cleaner data systems that keep Excel familiar while consolidating decisions into a single reliable source.
Take a moment to see how a few small guardrails can steady margins and speed up planning.
Quick Win For Your Finance Team
Customer-of-Customer Hook
A repeatable outbound move that ties your value to the prospect’s own customers, using a shared reference to prove impact and earn a short sanity check.
Steps (4):
Find the chain: Identify a customer you already helped who also buys from your prospect or a close peer. Write one clean sentence that explains the overlap.
Name the workflow link: Pinpoint where your lever touches their downstream customer experience, for example, partner-sourced speed to lead, billing accuracy on co-sold accounts, or onboarding timing that affects renewals.
Share a small, believable lift: Reference the mutual customer and the outcome you drove, stated as a tight range with one metric and where it lives.
Make the micro ask: Propose a 12- to 15-minute sanity check with the operator to confirm the dependency in their data and define a tiny pass-or-fail test.
Example line:
“We work with Acme, who also buys from {Your Prospect}. We improved speed to lead on partner-sourced deals, lifting first-touch time by 7 to 10 percent, according to their CRM report. Open to a 12-minute sanity check to confirm whether the same pattern shows up in your Acme pipeline and set a small test with a clear pass or fail bar?”
Expected outcome:
Warmer VP and operator replies, faster credibility through a shared customer, and a quick yes or no decision on a scoped pilot tied directly to the prospect’s revenue.
💵 4 Moves CFOs Use To Ride A Whipsaw Dollar
CFOs dealing with a weaker dollar are trying to protect margins and smooth EPS using a small set of practical plays. With volatility expected to remain bumpy, teams are tightening programs now through layered hedges and supplier negotiations, rather than reacting after the fact. See full article.
Why this matters (fast take):
🧱 Stagger Hedges: Build a rolling schedule so you are not exposed to a single bad week; for example, cover a larger share in the near term and taper coverage further out to reduce shock.
🤝 Share FX Pain: Push for USD pricing where possible, or split currency moves with suppliers, and use rate locks or adjustment clauses to cap input surprises.
💸 $70M Fuels Datarails’ FinanceOS, Ending the Excel vs. Platform Standoff
Datarails raised $70 million in a Series C led by One Peak to expand its FinanceOS approach for CFO teams. The pitch is simple: keep Excel as the interface, but centralize clean, governed data so planning and reporting stop living in scattered files. See full article.
Fast move:
🧾 Round Signal: The $70 million Series C lifts total funding to $175 million, and points to continued expansion beyond FP&A.
📊 Meet Teams Where They Work: Excel remains the daily home for most finance teams, so the win is a single source of truth behind the spreadsheet, not a forced workflow reset.
📉 2.3% Confidence Dip: Fix Data First To Save Your Digital Push
As finance leaders add tools, messy data still slows decision-making, weakens credit workflows, and reduces ROI. Dun & Bradstreet reports financial confidence fell 2.3% in Q4, which raises the cost of errors. The practical answer is a data-first cleanup that standardizes records and enforces quality at the source. See full article.
Fast move:
🧹 Clean The Core: Audit inconsistencies, correct history, enforce validation at entry, then track DSO and bad debt as the proof points.
🌐 Standardize Across Regions: Use one taxonomy across systems, align formats and languages, and turn fragmented customer records into usable credit and risk intelligence.
Automation Play Of The Week
Two-Thread Recap -- Stop Stakeholders From Rewriting The Story
After a group call, everyone walks away with a slightly different version. Two targeted recaps keep the narrative aligned and pull the next step forward.
3-Step How-To
Use the transcript to generate two versions: Exec recap (decision, why now, risks, ask, decision date) and Operator recap (plan, owners, dates, dependencies).
Send both within 15 minutes and log them to the CRM.
Convert the operator recap into tasks (owners plus dates), and send one clean exec CTA, sponsor confirmation, or decision checkpoint.
10-Minute Test (today)
Grab your last multi-stakeholder call.
Draft the two recaps using the rules above.
Send both internally and see which one gets forwarded, and which one gets a reply first.
📊 Take This Edition’s Poll:
When FX turns choppy, what would you rather implement first?
Why It Matters
When FX swings, a rolling hedge plan and shared risk with suppliers can soften the impact without forcing constant pricing pivots. But the leverage disappears if your inputs are unreliable, which is why finance teams are prioritizing standardized data and platforms that centralize truth without breaking familiar workflows.
In uncertain markets, the advantage is not calling every move; it is building a system that can absorb them.
Until the next financial insight,
Corrine Maxwell
Editor-in-Chief
CFO Executive Insights
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