Ground breaking businesses InnoVent and Transparent presented impressive masterclasses during a well-attended CFO South Africa event in the Tintswalo at Waterfall 5-star Boutique Hotel just north of Johannesburg. The theme of the gathering on Thursday 10 April was Capital & Finance and the attending CFOs and finance experts were treated to new ideas and a range of innovative solutions.
Transparent’s Carolina van den Ark challenged the audience and said they probably think the controls at their company prevent double payments. “In reality an average of up to 1 percent of payments are duplicate payments and that can cost the company a lot of money.” Transparent has developed a method to discover double payments, which does not only save companies around the world a lot of money – but also helps them to streamline and improve their processes.
A former sceptic of Transparent’s method, Nedbank’s GM Group Financial Control Darryl McMullen, added his voice to the masterclass and explained Transparent has already saved “just shy of R14 million”. McMullen said he’d learnt a lot from the process of working with transparent as well. “Initially I was arrogant and said you won’t find anything, but it’s a really useful process and we’ll keep making use of it.”
During the other masterclass another happy client, CFO Brett Tromp of Discovery Health, explained how much he enjoys working with InnoVent, which provides an innovative asset management model. “It is saving us money and allows us to concentrate on our core business, instead of worrying about vehicles or computers,” said Tromp.
InnoVent has an impressive list of clients, ranging from iconic brands like Mercedes and SAB Miller to accounting firms like PwC and EY. “In the ten years we have been operating, we have never lost a client,” said Shane Merriman, InnoVent’s managing director. He explained how InnoVent subsidises asset finance. After the agreed terms the asset goes back to a refurbishing plant and is remarketed under the Q-Rent brand. Assets that are redundant for businesses are then resold to other markets in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and other African markets. Because of this model InnoVent can beat lending rates at banks any time.
Although traditionally companies prefer to own their assets, it doesn’t make sense if they depreciate fast. “About 80 percent of the cost is actually incurred after the purchase,” explained Merriman, giving lack of flexibility, shrinkage, downtime, out of warranty repairs, disposal, storage and admin as examples.
Director Jonas Schöfer of the Hackett Group finished the evening with a thought provoking presentation on working capital. In an earlier interview with CFO South Africa Schöfer explained how South African companies can to "free up working capital”.
Top picture: Darryl McMullen (Nedbank). Middle picture: Brett Tromp (Discovery Health). Bottom Picture: Jonas Schöfer (Hackett Group).
- See pictures of the event here.
The slides of the presentations made at the CFO South Africa Master Classes can be accessed here below:
- Master Class Transparent and Darryl McMullen, GM Group Financial Co...
- Master Class Innovent and Brett Tromp, CFO Discovery Health
- Presentation Jonas Schoefer, Director The Hackett Group
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