The Un-accidental CFO

Venkatesh Tarakkad: to begin with I must say my journey into finance was accidental actually. So, my I was my original plan was to be an engineer after grade 12 I had even taken admission in engineering college. And then I happened to be in Pune there is a road called law college road going in a one direction a fellow classmate of mine was going the other direction. I asked him where he was going, he said he was going to Symbiosis. He had much better academic records than me. So I asked him why Symbiosis? He said amazing extracurricular activities plus sports. I was more into sports rather than academics. So I turned my cycle around went to Symbiosis, got my B.Com form and that’s how it happened. So it was not planned. I am very impressed with kids nowadays who have a much clearer plan of what they want to get in. But once I did into B.com, I then realized, okay, degree would not be enough and frankly speaking our undergraduate courses do not offer too much of a challenge. So, along with B.com I started my ICWA I wanted to finish my ICWA along with B.com. Since I took up ICWA I realized along with the other activities I would not have enough time to prepare for an MBA. So, what I did is I decided to do a CA post my B.com. Those were the days when the foundation course had not yet started actually it was supposed to start subsequently. I sat in my seat with my B.Com and then I did my CA post that. I have been fortunate to have got good exposure in some of the organizations I have worked that those led to me becoming a CFO. I also was fortunate that I have always been in a startup environment actually. So if you look my first 23 years were EY, Coca-Cola and Metro Cash & Carry on large names, them strangely it is startup environment. So, I was the first employee of EY in Pune. So, along with the partner had to do business development even though I was very fresh had to do the accounts of the firm itself, all the stuff gain business. So, it helped set up an office for example. So, that was good. Then subsequently I moved to Coca-Cola which incidentally was one of our clients actually. So, the client asked and I wanted to move to the other side and I moved that side. first five employees in Coca-Cola Pune. So Coca-Cola was acquiring different bottling units etc. and then was setting up teams for those. So joined as part of a really good nice core. Incidentally, I joined along with Harsh Bhutan who is the right now the CFO of Coca-Cola India Southeast Asia etc. So two of us joined together. We spent nights putting in tally trail balance and all that. So you know, it was phenomenal. We had a lot of challenges. So, that helped me gain a lot of experience. Why I am mentioning specifically Coca-Cola is I went into the business side quite early there. So, we used to run our they used to run routes you know city wise routes which the bottling units directly manage. I was stationed at the depot one of the depots and got into managing the depots. So, basically an early exposure into supply chain. was that getting deep insight into the on-ground business gives you better understanding of what the as a finance professional I could contribute. So that was a fantastic experience for me. I was actually working like almost like an ASM to get the deliverables in. This gave me another opportunity within Coca-Cola, that is to be the functional lead for a sales and distribution system which Coca-Cola wanted to develop across the country. So all these things helped me get me a lot of perspectives in the beginning. Then what happened was Coca-Cola was doing very good and out of the blue I got a call from the CF of Metro Cash & Carry asking whether I would like to join. He got my reference from one of my bosses in Coca-Cola who used to be his colleague of Metro when he said Metro was this, first thing which struck me was Metro Theatre in Bombay, then the Metro Shoes, then the Metro in Kolkata. So I did some research but emitting it Manoj and Harsh Badur who was going to be the first CEO convinced me and I joined and I think it was a great decision for me because see Coca-Cola was just a small fish in a large pond. There were incredibly talented people. already in finance in Coca-Cola for me to rise up get additional opportunity over them would have been slightly more difficult. I am not saying I didn’t get the opportunities but could have been more. But co in metro I got the opportunity to start fresh and again here what I did was I didn’t start in accounting actually I started with putting in the processes we used to call them working instructions or basically SOPs. So develop all the SOPs What Metro Cash & Carry was ground breaking in that sense, you know, setting up organized retail, we have to educate suppliers, we have to educate customers, we had to go on a very organized customer acquisition drive, etcetera. So, what my job was to put in all the working processes on the ground. So, about first year and a half, I was involved in doing that, setting up business, working on the ground, training cashiers, training customer acquisition staff, etcetera. tally or you know so then went into the implementation of SAP to as you scale up etc. So all these help me get deep knowledge about how businesses are run and they help me on the finance side also. Typically for finance professionals what happens is there are two main sub functions which one can lead is either the FP and A or business finance role. or the accounting or the finance control or ship role. See, one has to be extremely strong in one of them at least. Then there are of course things like tax and treasury and all that, which can be substance in one of these also. I have always been on the business finance side, you know, with a reasonably good exposure in the accounting part. That’s how I developed. So Metro, that helped me get set the base, platform setting up the budgeting process, et cetera. It sounds fancy a lot of time this is all on Excel, you know, still I believe Excel continues to be the ERP of choice for many people. So, except for database management, I think it shall work. So we did all that, but the whole point is to get the process and thought behind. So in this journey, if you see it is basically getting much more information about business, be part of decision making. So right from the beginning, what I said. happen because I have been in planning budgeting on the ground etc. I have been exposure to the general managers, the chief operating officers, the CEOs, being part of the meeting etc. Even as a very junior flunky I am just keying in the numbers, putting the numbers you get a lot of inputs because these are very experienced people, very sharp capable people. So this exposure I think it is necessary for anybody to get those inputs. You could be a pure technical CFO or you have to decide whether you want to add value to the business. me whether intentional or not this this helped me also the willingness to take some risks like moving from Coca-Cola to metro. So this helped me quite a lot and one turning point happened was we went through some tough times in metro during one of those times what we decided as the business finance team is to focus on automating and trying to make dashboards in a much more meaningful way. So we worked on a business objects solution. I must say my team members. were more important in that my help, my role was to guide them, make sure decision is made, give them the framework, etc. But on one of the group CFOs visits to India, we showed him that and he was pretty impressed with what was happening. So he invited me for a, what you could say, it’s more like an evaluation process in the group. I did reasonably well in that. So I was given the opportunity to go to our group company in Düsseldorf. Now, that again is another aspect which helped me grow as a CFO because from an of course, we were at the headquarters always this India specific headquarters, but going to a group which is 50 years having x 15 years experience and looking at how they manage things with relatively limited data, but looking at trends across different geographies was a eye opener for me. So, that helped me to think of what what is it that. eventually shareholders etc would be looking at you know so that had been so in what happens at a really group corporate level is you don’t go extremely deep into one topic but you go very broad you know you go you take a few KPS and you spread them out and then you go broad and look at trends you have to look at trends you know so while it is a very mathematical exercise has to be the base there is also some intuition in terms of looking at the trends and seeing what will happen you have to look at the future see what you want to be two years down the line five All this is not possible to even now with AI, etc. Coming in is not necessarily the easiest thing. Those days it was even more difficult. Going to the group level helped me. I realized that a few hundred crores get lost in the consolidation because we used to report in billion euros at the group level and Metro a group was 42nd on the Fortune 500 list. It was not a small company. It was a huge company.

Rohit Agarwal: Good night.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: So, I realized the scale, materiality, importance of processes to drive etcetera. So, all these helped me in my journey and then basis my interaction with the group there etcetera. I got my first opportunity as CFO in one of the metro subsidiaries. So, that was my journey to as to become a CFO. The whole process has been about getting deep, putting in a lot of hard work. I have seen quite a lot of brilliant colleagues.

Rohit Agarwal: Oh, yeah.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: who are significantly more productive than me for but for me I realized I need to put in a quite a lot of extra efforts sometimes going I mean quite a lot of times going out of the way to learn new things so I think those are the things which help me on my journey to become a CFO.

Rohit Agarwal: Very interesting. I think especially with your background in terms of doing ICWA, which is more of a cost accounting focused course and then the chart of the accountancy, which traditionally would pave the path to be a controller as you define sort of finance controller versus the business, FP and ALEED, the two different segments of finance. It was interesting that kind of your career moved more on the business And I’m sure that took sort of specific steps by you to be able to take those risks and you know, put yourself in those positions to be able to be part of those conversations.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: It also helps to evolve oneself as a professional. So, I will give an example. So, whether it was in EY, Co, Co or then Metro, I was involved in a lot of process and system designs and a lot of implementations, ERP implementations, do them in career. In Metro, what I realized is when I was doing the process and you are able to go and realize my knowledge level is not good enough. So, I studied for to become a information system auditor. So, CSI is an American certification which gives. So, that also helped me. But I mean tell things, those, I mean nowadays the terminology is different, it’s much easier, etc, etc. But those days if somebody said TCP, IPI would be wondering what is it, you know. So all these things, you know, basic also things like when you are developing systems, what is the system development life cycle? All those two understand. So that’s how I gave an exam after I joined the metro cash and carry. So these things also help professionals to get stay abreast. So if you do it as a degree. It is. Yes it is important because your CV gets shortlisted but for other things but to as a learning process as a knowledge building process this helps. So this is also something which I would help and nowadays it is even more easier you have some amazing courses available online many of them free also to get imbibe knowledge you know so that is another thing which helps.

Rohit Agarwal: It makes sense. It was interesting. You also mentioned that, you know, how you moved from E&Y to a client of yours, Coca-Cola, and then how, you know, a person that you were working with at Coca-Cola referred you to Metro. How then within Metro, you were then, you know, able to move with the work that you did to the Germany office, right? It was all sort of linked to the performance of, you know, your current role that led the way to get the next role. I’m curious to know how did you determine what is the right time to jump to the next role, to the next company, because it all takes risk, right? Whenever you are getting into a new environment, it involves risk. What was sort of your mindset, maybe common thread across all of those decisions that you were making?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: So let’s say even the jump from EY to Coca-Cola, EY is actually doing well and thanks to the partners who supported me, but I realized what happened was I was part of Pune, which is a small unit. We were doing all different types of things. So we were doing not the standard internal audit, we were doing due diligence, valuation, et cetera, but it was getting more specialized and Pune was getting more as an audit firm. I didn’t see myself as a pure auditor. So when the opportunity to came Coca-Cola opportunity came, so it was asked. My partner was supportive and he went move. So basically I took the decision because I felt I was not, I didn’t have the temperament to be an auditor as such. So that’s how I took the decision. The move from Coca-Cola to Metro was slightly more tougher in the sense that everybody except my now wife said no. Because you know Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola. I mean to be frank it’s one of the best employers you can have in the world. world, you know, it is a fantastic, it is a brand name and you people usually stick along there. So, but I was realizing that if I needed to move in a from a career growth perspective, I need to be in an organization which will allow me to do that and the earlier I joined maybe the better, I mean I am not defensive, but there were significantly more smarter people than me in Coca-Cola and financing. So, one has to realize how you how how how how how how how how how how how how how how of each person is, then that’s how I moved to Metro. In within Metro, yes, the first one to move to Germany was actually happened as such, we thought we haven’t taken, and it was a no-brainer because we are facing, at that point of time, some challenges with Metro India to grow, et cetera, so we were sure, knowing that for a few years, it will be at a flat level. So that was it, and the move was great. the CFO of Bulgaria was also good. The decision to come back to India was also again a difficult one in the sense that I was doing pretty well being in Europe closer to the headquarters. So you are in the visible zone right. So my career was going fantastic. But Metro India again I was thinking I had the opportunity to finally do something back in India in the organization I created. 11 was still about 1400 crores. It has not moved in too much, but then I think what we did is the group got Rajiv Bakshi as the CEO. Normally you don’t take from externally in metro as such CEOs, you take usually internally growth, et cetera, who had an FMCG background of Pepsi, Cadbury’s, et cetera. So I got excited, let me make a try. And we did, I think reasonably good job because we moved for an offline business from 1400 crores to 6000 crores in five years. amount of work. So, I took the opportunity that I said ok let me try to have the opportunity to build something and then I went there. Then what happened is Rajiv moved on and then I was not in line with what Rajiv’s boss thought about in business. Now it is a both a what works and what does not work you know. So, I have got I wanted to be very active in the business growth etcetera because I mean as they are right from the beginning right very different from my boss, boss, Rajeev was moving out and new boss was supposed to come in. So, in the in that context things were not I was not sure how it would move. So, I took the opportunity to do a startup myself in the sense that CM macro which is part of the CP group in Thailand wanted to enter cash and carry business in India and they were looking for and they somehow got Harsh Badur who was the first CEO of Metro Cash & Carry as a consultant for them. And they were asking her, who do we, we want to start this? How do we start it? We need somebody to lead the process, et cetera. So he recommended my name and I said, okay, I’ve been with Metro a little bit of time. I was at that point of time, say, 44 years old. I said, okay, if you want to take a risk, let me take now. I joined as the first employee. So me, the only two of us, me and the other director, he is actually the grandson of the group founder. We didn’t have an office. We started with Starbucks, MGF mall Gurgaon. So actually true setup. So we incorporated the incorporation is in my name and Panit’s name of CM McRae. It’s now known as Lots Wholesale in Delhi. So I took that risk also. So like this decision was based on the fact try to create something new, you know. So, there were risks involved and it didn’t work out in that sense because after the first three four months I realized like I could have continued like it can employment in CM macro is a lifetime employment and very good people. But their understanding of Indian market somehow got governed by a entry strategy which built up one of the by the top three. I don’t want to name them here and it was all completely crazy talked about able to get a five-acre land in India completely clean in three months or a payback period of large retail stores of four years, etc. Then I saw I revised the projection because see you can keep good targets for your stiff targets for the team, but you can’t do your cash flow projections on hope. Cash flow projection has to be always be realistic. Your KPIs on which your performance is based can be added. as strict as possible. So it was becoming the other way around here. Cash flow projections also, I had a different, and since we couldn’t agree, I was wondering what to do. And I was going to be on one of the trips to Thailand, then TCNS called me, you know. So I took the decision. Now this was also another very change. I have been 23 years with multinationalists. TCNS is an Indian company in April one, never been in an Indian company. But TCNS wanted to build up its process. They were asking me because through some connects again, we knew each other because they wanted because I had scaled up businesses, set up processes, and eventually got an idea. I got very excited about that. I thought, OK, let me, I’ve always been an international company. I’ve handled investors in the sense that metro at a group level, you need to consolidate. You need to be somebody who supports the CFO for answers, et cetera. So I got this opportunity. Then I took the decision, OK, let me change track. Let me look at this. At that point of time, I had a couple of offers from large established organizations also. But I said, let me do this. I’m glad at it. I’m really glad I took that opportunity because then I got through the whole IPO process. So now, I mean, search consultants still do call, but that is all more due because of the IPO experience. So setting up, scaling, et cetera. So these are some of the decisions which happen which go through in the one. All of them have been, in my view, what I thought best for that time. The last one has been more driven by personal one because at some point of time, you need to see what is the environment around, etc. I had to move my parents to Bangalore there. My dad is going to be 80 now. They were staying in a fantastic place by now, but they were seven hours away from me, you know, so an incident happened. I couldn’t reach them on time. Thankfully, there was a relative there. It was not. They were wanting to move them to Bangalore. was a support system. It didn’t happen, so it couldn’t happen. So I decided I need to move to Bangalore. And when I, at this process, the founder of, one of the founders of DealShare, Medda, whom again I had worked with earlier, he was calling me. Actually, I was also giving him recommendations. He had been asking me, I was giving him recommendations of CFOS in Bangalore, et cetera, from a network. Somehow it didn’t work out. Then he asked me, why don’t you only join? So that’s how I moved. more driven by personal need to come to back load. But other than that, most of my this thing has been through somebody I’ve known, seen whether I can take risks, that’s a different choice, try to evolve. So I’m moved from a very steady organization, which has global templates to, to organizations, which have you have to be quick on the feet, you don’t have the processes, etc. So it’s been a nice interesting journey that

About DealShare#

Rohit Agarwal: Very cool, very cool. Can you tell us a little about Dealshare, what it is, what you guys do?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: Yeah, so we are an online grocery player. This online grocery is the holy mecca of retail, which nobody is yet cracked it globally. So it’s very tough space to crack. So Vinit and Mehta had a concept of how to do online retail, primarily Vinit had the model. Mehta had the domain knowledge of retail. retail, grocery, etc. So, these two came together and that’s how deal share was set up. See, there are multiple ways of doing online grocery. One of the key challenges has always been the unit economics, how to make it work. So, some few principle principles which deal share follows by and that is what is our USP is the following. We are into value retail. So, not into premium, we will provide the best possible grocery basket. Basically at the best price, that’s the whole point. Now to achieve that, we do a few things. We are not into quick commerce. Our average delivery days is one and a half days. So basically what we do in our online business is that we consolidate orders, we accumulate them and then makes our last mile much more efficient. That’s the whole key, that’s the premise. Second what we did even for the last mile. of doing with the tradition or the currently accepted processes of doing last mile either also sit completely or build it up in fully internal. We did a model called deal share those and that has been proven to be a advantage for us. So we create micro entrepreneurs everywhere. So we do the first mile to their location or they come and pick up but they know the respective area you know. So they have their own people. They can run these. and at a significantly better cost than most of us. Also it adds a bit of touch to the way we interact with customers. See, most of us go to Kirana stores or most of whom go to Kirana stores because you have the personal touch with the shopkeeper. Now because of the deals are those, he is managing local delivery boys etc. That could also be connects with the customers that way, you know, so the person knows whom they are interacting with they can come back. That’s how the premise was. So we started with it. value second is that they will share those the model. Third is very important is differentiated assortment. So, see you need to have certain items in your basket irrespective of whether you are giving to the lowest economic standard or the highest one. Like for example, Oreo biscuits everybody has in their basket everybody has Oreo biscuit. Actually Parle G glucose is there in everybody’s basket you cannot do with that. detergents for example surf excel for a for example, even the maids have it because they say if there if there they might be having only say two good pieces of cloth amongst them one for adding wedding attending wedding and something else. Those they will wash in surf excel so they will have a small pouch which they will see you know so some of these things are there. But excluding this what we do is we focus on the categories which is consumed by the mass. you in if you are in Mumbai area, we do not supply, we do not sell saffola, it is not our remnant, our largest selling oil are gulab and tirupati, is most people would not know, you know, which is not there. So, these are the thing, but it does not mean I will not keep fortune, I need fortune also. So, this is how we determine our this one, it is a journey, we are getting there in that sense, certain things we already established. So, for example, there is a bujya called shiram bujya, normally you would buy the bikanos, etc. But Shiraam Bhujia is growing fast. So we want to create many more such brands which we do. Plus we’ve set up a I think a fantastic private label team, my colleague Hemant heads that he set up a fantastic team and the speed at which we are turning around private labels is incredible. This will help us help the wheelchair get the mix right and the margins right. So summary online grocery player value based differentiated supply. at long term 5-10 years down the line we have to be omnichamber we have to do offline especially in India without that it is not possible so we will work on that we will be doing couple of pilots etc. So basically overall grocery retail is what we want to begin.

The evolving role of the CFO#

Rohit Agarwal: Very cool. Super interesting. Moving on, Venkatesh, to the kind of the CFO role per se. I’m sure you have seen, you know, not only different companies in sort of different businesses, as well as, you know, both exposure to the India side of the house as well as the Europe. How do you think about the role of the CFO 30 years that you have been working. Has there been a change in perspective and how do you see it moving forward in the next 5 to 10 years?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: Yeah, see I would say that change has maybe already happened in the last couple of decades has there has been a significant shift I would say post liberalization etcetera, while it goes quite long time back and but that is true prior to that basis what I would speak to seniors etcetera prior to that it was a more a finance controllership job and a taxation related job that is what the role would be. The fundamentals in terms of hygiene and compliance are still there. But, if you say, but it has been evolving to more towards in terms of business partnering ah, how does a CFO contribute. So, earlier it would not be there, ah it would not be surprising to see stop of lot of top leadership meetings without the CFO even, because it was business discussion. So, you know it was assumed that it is a different. So, it is now there is it is bit strange, but that is happened, but now it is lot to look with business partnering. A lot of investor relations interaction ah, you know ah, of course, if you are a startup more than the CFO you know, but as you move towards becoming larger you move after a certain series E D E round the CFO has to interact quite a lot as you go listing you have to do all that. So, there is a lot of significant investor reason. One very important thing which has happened in the last decade especially is the CFOs involvement in tech and products basically because that is how things have evolved.

Rohit Agarwal: Ray.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: young of mind, the fact is chronologically I come from a situation where when I used to do audit in Tata Motors that those days it was called telco. There was a team of 100 people who are just doing calculations. So the team was called computeronics. So they would put punch in the manual things and then they would take up the total and do that thing. So you know this is before computers came in you know or they were just coming in. So those are things. So we moving from that. And now take us.

Rohit Agarwal: Bye.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: I mean that is what is enabling us to talk so clearly to each other now as fundamental as this. So, these are some things which are done and I would say in the last 5, 6 years it is even changed further basically the focus of CFR has to be building healthy sustainable businesses and I am not even talking startup based, I am talking any business it how do you make it sustainable, how do you make the business model sustainable you know that is to do that. You will see successful companies are ones who have the background and the base to sustain for in terms of decades not in years. So that is what CFOs have to aim towards. So this is the key part building healthy sustainable business is what a CFOs prime role should be. There are other things of course you need to make sure your government’s compliance your flow is okay. You are typically the conscious keeper as such an external investor would somehow look to the CFO when you are not numbers not that the CEOs don’t know the numbers. The CEOs in fact many times know the numbers are better than the CFOs or the metrics but you are supposed to be the conscious keeper. So these are the things. Last but not the least this CFO has to be a significantly important sound source. funding board for the CEO or the founders. What happens is in the enthusiasm drive the intensity with the CEO or the founders bring into the business and that is extremely necessary. There are some times when there is small course correction needed, sometimes it might be major. In these cases, CFO has to play an important role. It may not be apparent, it might be small things but those are critical. So these are some of the things which I would say in terms of what the role is and how it

Rohit Agarwal: Very interesting. You mentioned sort of the technology aspect of the role where CFOs need to play an important role in making sure that the technology deployment advancement is happening. Can you give us maybe some tangible examples in terms of how do you think about deployment of various technologies in the various companies that you’ve been at? Is there some framework that you use COVID-19 has impacted that thought process because everything sort of went digital or you know sort of work from home became the mainstay. So how has that also impacted your thought process around deploying technology?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: Yeah, so technology from a finance point of view earlier would be restricted to the accounting package or ERP packages. So even when you did ERP packages, let’s say let’s take the two, three largest ones, whether it is SAP or Accol or Microsoft Dynamics would typically be restricted to the finance controlling modules, etc. These did give a significantly more robust platform compared to the tallies of the world, limited. What has happened and what I have been fortunate to be part of is extending these things backwards and forwards in the sense of for example, when you are in a retail organization, how do you do your inventory management? That is extremely important. What comes about in your financials is an output basically, you know, it is not the input which comes in. Typically in retail most of your transactions, Goods order management systems are not part of the year. It could be or could not be, but the CFS role and focus has to be on ensuring that part is correct so that the input into what the financials are important. So there would happen you have a good system and then you make sure that whatever is coming is there, but how do you know that that database is robust enough? How do you know what is generated in the IMS or IMS? Is it optimized? So the role has automatically expands. You are directly deep into business because you are talking about how the engine which runs your business itself should be run, you know, so there is quite a lot of. So this is where it is. So let’s take Metro for example, you know, the finance team, I was not the CFO then, but the finance team, me and another colleague who is in this is a CFO in one large another company right now. We our focus was to get work on the goods management system to make sure that is as efficient as possible for business. So our job is to make sure that at that point of time was to make sure that you have developed a system which gives the right information for business to take calls. We were not necessarily taking the calls at that level, but it was important to give the right business. So if you are a buyer, for example, you need to have visibility of how an SKU has done, what is the margin of that one, what is in statistical margin, what is in later income, et cetera. So you need to go deep into all this. What is the supplier performance? A lot of it may not come directly from that technology product itself, but you need to see how do you extract it and make it sit on top of a layer. I mentioned business object sometime back. That is one of the things which we did in metro. So how do you compile that? Because there’s huge amount of volume of data, you know, so how do you make it simple? How do you make that thing? So that is where technology is you cannot do it on Excel spreadsheets only Excel is critical, but it cannot do it on this. So this is what I mean by technology. How do you make the process simple? How do you make sure on the ground you have scanning? I mean we had scanners 20 years back now it seems commonplace you do with a mobile. So, how do you do that? Automated payments were not there for vendors. How do you get that thing that? So, the first thing when we are speaking to suppliers were they when the buyers were approaching the vendors they first of all not used to modern day. We said we will pay on time give us the best rates. But after they saw in the first 3 to 6 months that basis the due date the payment would automatically come out. I mean it is a completely different experience for them you know we had people following up with us earlier, payment here hojayaega ke nahi and they would be irritated in the beginning when my team would not respond in that sense you know because we know it will go automatically. So but these are now fundamental but those days it was part change, so you need to look at the whole end to end chain, so this is what we for example we did it in metro, then even in metro so for example we were in metro Bulgaria, so I again volunteered to be the first in something called common template SAP implementation. implementation which went to the P2P process that is you get all your POS everything integrated you know that was an including for non trade items you know that made things so systematically in the beginning of course there was difficulty there is always an additional effort involved but subsequently the process became seamless and it was digital and this is long before I am talking 2009 you know so it was digital or for example exchange of immobilization what would happen is earlier you always have this three way match right.

Rohit Agarwal: chart

Venkatesh Tarakkad: between a purchase order, GRN and an invoice. What we did there was in those days it was EDI, APIs and all are now new, electronic data interchange. So we went from a manual process to an EDI related vendor invoices and submission of 80% in 6 months. So you know at one stroke what you have done is you have cleaned up a huge amount of time spent on inputting of invoices, checking those invoices, etc.

Rohit Agarwal: and the

Venkatesh Tarakkad: Now what happens is the data comes in so you focus on the quality part so what that helps is you have the same people for volume x and volume 4x also because they are now doing only the checking part you know and that quality of data is maintained. So we had this in 2009 and 2010 you know so these are certain things which help so basically what I am saying is when you talk tech you need to do end to end or let us say much later in TCNS when you are talking about end to end. So we had a chain of retail stores.

Rohit Agarwal: correct correct Char.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: retail stores across. What would happen is there are a lot of good POS systems across the country. I mean there are multiple products available. So all the sales would happen on that then at the day end or actually on the month end the total summary used to come and then you pose a consolidated entry. But then your visibility also for system, you are looking for data, you are looking at another system this is separate. So we did Microsoft Dynamics because for this particular application Microsoft Dynamics is at a PRM CRM perspective, POS perspective is superior to the other two. So we did that now what happened is automatically all the information which is available on the POS is controlled centrally. You can have much better database management. It is not that he suddenly in five store something is happening another tensor something is happening. You have all the data coming on a daily basis it says so this O2CU order to cash reconciliation is happening daily basis and automated. Now suddenly again the team is focused on quality rather than trying to send excel files somebody poor fellow in a store in Gowati and asking me why is it not matching. Now everybody has a visibility to the same things. So you talk about end to end, so it helps. Or again in PCNSO we were manufactured, so in the sense that we designed everything, we procured the right amount of it. It is a complex system, it has to be institutionalized. How do we give fabrics and we used to give it to our subcontractors to stitch at the final. talking about multiple SKUs I mean you are talking about one dress versus another etc you know and there would be issues the guy would say I had sold you for 100, either we would say 98, all that stuff you know because they were all smaller players what we did there also and we did it with our partner who was managing logistics we asked those guys to scan the products there because we have to scan at every SKU level it is not that I can scan a like in for example if I buy say Ariel or RIM I can scan one of the

Rohit Agarwal: and right yet a a a a a a a a a a a

Venkatesh Tarakkad: and input the quantity as 500, but for addresses we did not want to do that, we did not want to scan at every article level just to make sure. So what did we do? We got the supplier to do it for themselves. So supplier upload, same thing at my end I am getting everything at an SKU level automated, supplier results are clear because he scanned this, he knows what is what he is given us the data. So I say he is psychologically very comfortable even if we had trust in our processes company. So extend this technology part end to end helps quite a lot. you know so these are a few things you have to do also it depends on the maturity of the organization how do we do it you do it step by step. Deal share we are still not where I would like us to be but I would now rather focus on making sure that the base is set so we were also in tally and I don’t think it makes sense to go to a larger ERP very early also so we were in tally now we move to SAP B1 which is still a smaller version of the SAP part. Now I will make sure that is right now stabilized. Then we will extend it on both sides. So it depends how do you move. In a place like metro, you always have to think ahead because it’s already a mature organization. Place like TCNS, cash generating, already in business, think four steps ahead. Best is eCom express actually. We have 60,000 employees on the ground delivering people. We used to do that and we have to reimburse their fuel because they’re all on our roads. It used to be manual. Just imagine 60,000 people putting in. points across the country. They are putting in numbers. Everybody is putting in Excel. Somebody at the city level and state level is checking. Then it goes to the regional controller. Then somebody is checking all that stuff. So what we did and the technology team that did a fantastic thing. So we did everything map through the app itself. So what we would do is it’s like how Zomato what happens is it’s easy. Zomato or Sugi. They have point to point. So it’s easier to calculate distance. When you are in ecom express you are delivering volumes it may not exactly be point to point because you will need to change the route etcetera but we did tracking. So, all the 60000 people they would in their mobiles you track automatically kilometers would get detected and the fuel calculation rate. So, what earlier was a massive exercise became automated next day morning everybody has the numbers you know. So, these are and it removes a lot of friction the team is not worried whether they will get the reimbursement or not etcetera for all ground people this matters quite a lot.

Rohit Agarwal: Tchau.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: getting that fuel investment of 5000 rupees per month is quite critical. You know, so these are the things which get automated. We did P2P also that is also in process there where basis you do while we could not go like a metro where the supplier would do EDI, we are doing with a process where you scan the invoice through OCR. It is a 75 to 80 percent success rate, does not matter. You are still 20 percent, you have to carry on it 20 percent. I am not sure what the status is right now, but that is what we are planning to do. So the technology covers a wider spectrum. It’s not just about accounting and of course at the final end is You need to have data lakes you need to Get into data science All that that is something you need to do data science as specialists I am not sure of how whether a finance person would be able to Get that skill set to do it But finance plays a very important role in making sure that as especially at the seaford to make sure that is in place So these are some examples Sorry, I could go on and on and output the technology part

Rohit Agarwal: Kör rate.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: Thank you. Bye.

Rohit Agarwal: Yeah, this is quite interesting. The question that I want to ask here is historically anything related to revenue generation, it’s easier to get budgets for those kind of technologies, whether you think about sales, marketing. Most people, even now at times, they may think of finance as a cost center. How was it for you to go and ask for budgets technology deployments within the finance department.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: It is always been difficult and across organizations have always faced this challenge. It is the job of this CFO even at an early stage to communicate the importance of hygiene. When we look at all this, what I told you a lot of it is basic hygiene itself investment go towards that itself. It is the job of the CFO to keep communicating especially one has experience to communicate the importance of this.

Rohit Agarwal: and the

Venkatesh Tarakkad: the CFO needs to use the board also effectively in these things because the board usually has a wider experience of seeing across organizations and they usually understand faster. So it depends on how the CFO manages this. So it you especially use and so it’s good to have joint discussions because it is investments let’s put it. It’s does not direct investments. And it is also slightly difficult to calculate ROI. I have also been trying to figure out how to calculate ROIs in this. You do. You make some assumptions, et cetera. For a WMS, you say my efficiency will improve. My shrinkage will reduce, et cetera. And then you do that thing. But for other things, it becomes slightly difficult, especially in India where manpower is still relatively affordable at the junior level, at the data entry level. So it is a constant journey. I would say I don’t have a magic pill for that right now.

Rohit Agarwal: relative change. Yeah.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: would say I am stubborn and persistent as hell for hanging up and doing the allocation. I think what one what what also helps is doing it in advance. So I have made mistakes couple of times suddenly in the middle of the year saying we need to see how to allocate this funds. It is always easier to do it earlier during the overall annual operating plan or budget phase to say for the next year this is what I plan you know then it does not come as a surprise. is locked on. So I would recommend that it involves some time to think of what might be needed in the next year or so. It is difficult, it is difficult, it is challenging. I have also used my peer network to get inputs about work works, what not works, what is the expected or approximate costs of certain things etc. So it has to be a consistent effort but I would strongly recommend that doing it early at an annual budgeting phase itself helps.

The CFO as Conscious Keeper#

Rohit Agarwal: Perfect, makes sense. You know, in your question around evolution of the CFO role, you also mentioned kind of CFOs need to be a sounding board to the CEOs, co-founders and so on. I want to hear from you. How do you think about the relationship between the CEO or founders and the CFOs? And are there any specific things that you do to continue to foster that?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: Yeah, see. The relationship of the CEO or the founders with the top leadership, any member of the top leadership is extremely important whether it is CFO, whether it is CHRO, whether it is the COO, CBO, CMO, CIO, etcetera, whatever it is extremely important. But the relationship with the CFO has certain additional nuances to be taken care of. See, everybody would hope that the organization at some point of time is large enough growth, whether by private or public large. know in these cases especially the CFO has an additional responsibility because he has a responsibility to the shareholders also. So in the in that case it is slightly more critical that the relationship between CO and CFO is at it is relatively healthy. It is not necessary to have the same views and opinions. Most of the organizations where I have been in I have at in certain topics very different use on certain things you know, but the point is to be able to logically put forward this argument this arguments or discussion points. The one thing which is especially critical from a CEO-CEO relationship or the founder CFO relationship is the ability to discuss points without worrying about whether one is right or wrong. environment has to be cultivated right from the beginning of a relationship you know. I do not think it is sustainable for the organization and the individuals concerned to not be in this situation. Frankly speaking if a CO and CFO do not get along well it is better that the CFO looks for other opportunities because it is more likely that the CFO is replaced by the CO. I am just saying a very practical situation. establish this trust at the beginning of a relationship which we should and then it has to continue from there. It is also very important for the CFO right from the beginning to stick to his or her views because the CFO is coming from also typically even how our business oriented it is. compliance, governance etc not that the CEO doesn’t look at it but the CFO has had much more time to consider all aspects of this so it needs to be very pretty firm on these things and this is where usually stress points occur you know, a CFO might say that this we should not do because it might be so and so issue, so and so issue, CSEs, no, no, this is for business, this is what we have to do and all that stuff you know so there the CFO has to take a call.

Rohit Agarwal: for today.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: she or he feels like so this boundaries there but basically without this relationship having a platform of ability to discuss at least I don’t think it will.

The first 100 days#

Rohit Agarwal: Make sense. Let’s get into a little bit of hypothetical here. Let’s assume kind of, I know, this is my first day as a CFO of a company. What would be your advice on my first 100 days plan? What should I focus on and sort of, you know, to be able to build a solid foundation for the years to come? And so, I’m going to start with a question. What is the best way to build a solid foundation for the years to come?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: So, I think setting a tone impression is important whether one is the CFO or a entry-level fresher. So, that is why this varies 100 or whether it is 20 or it is 6 months that is the better, but the fact is one needs to set a tone. What is worked for me I can share it might be different for other people. What I try to do at the beginning of the different organizations I have been is to meet as many as possible right up front, especially on ground you know go deep into the business and deep is you do not need a three month study, you need to be one week in the field you will know much more than you will ever know in a year sitting inside the office, you need to be on the ground understanding the business. So, one of the first things for example, whether you did in the deal share is go to the warehouse, see the warehouse operations, be there at the night. with the delivery boy understand what the business because that’s your output right all the things what you do is going towards that speak to customers extremely important all these things and it’s not you spend years and years on it one week is more than enough you know so that is important be at the where or speak to different people so all that as especially your team of course be as visible as possible so this at the beginning helps you get an understanding. basically combined with the CFOs evaluating his or her team. Now I think this is also general not just for finance, one needs to be comfortable with the team one has. Now the reality is that things get delivered as especially in my case there are certain things which I do not have expertise on my team members even now are better than me. My finance controller is better than me in the accounting part. I have much clue, I go to the experts, my current person who has taxes significantly superior. So you need to have an idea about these things, what your team strength is. And you need to change, I will give you an interesting thing in metro Bulgaria. So there were five or six people who were reporting to me. Out of the five or six, after three months, there was only one person who continued. She was outstanding, she was simply outstanding, was the finance controller. Everybody else I had to change. Now it’s sounding, I mean, it is a bit challenging. in a new role and changing, but that helped then that team was and then continued to be considered as one of the best in the metro group overall. So, you need that team at least I am very clear on that if I do not have a strong enough team either I change or you get additional one. So, these are the first few things which I will do and the one advantage as a new CFO or any leader one has is you have the freedom to express different views. and it is a reality. One year down the line, it is slightly more difficult to be objective. At the beginning you are still fresh. As long as one does not get carried away with saying that I used to do this and that, that may not have been the best. But you have a fresh view, you look at it, it is better. So do not keep holy cows at the beginning of your tenor health. So these are a few things which I tried to.

What keeps Venkatesh going#

Rohit Agarwal: Very cool. You know, it’s no surprise that the role of the CFO is quite demanding and also perhaps quite draining at times. Curious to know sort of what motivates you to keep going.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: So, few things, two things. First is in terms of how do I sustain and second thing is in terms of what is the inspiration or motivation. Let me take the second thing first. I have been fortunate right from my school days to have the company of people who have been simply brilliant. So, in school there were people who would be phenomenal in academics, but still maintain other interests. They were people who are fantastic, I mean they are now doctors, founders, etcetera, who are superb in sports. Now, I just have to look at them and see how do they manage all these things, what are the tips they can have. So, I have at this, so I try to learn from them in terms of how they do things. So, basically as inspiration rather as role models, I try to use my peers itself as role models.

Rohit Agarwal: Thank you. Bye.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: CEOs who been completely amazing, very different type of people, but fantastic in different thing. When I went to the group, I had Daphne as my boss, she was incredible. It was like she had multiple computers in her mind able to process information, you know. So, you learn from that very objective look at data, etcetera. I have people like Rajiv who knew the FMCG market, he would operate out of gut many times, basis is experience. Now, these are certain things you know. I had Emilia in Bulgaria, who was a fantastic people manager. I have Anand in TCNS, who is all these things put together, possibly one of the best bosses I have. You know, so I had Manoj in Metro, who was the first CFO, who was the most fearless leader I have seen. He has the most innovative leader I have seen. Now, when I can see these people do a lot of things, I try to push myself to see, can I do at least part of what these guys do. So these are some of the things.

Rohit Agarwal: Thank you. Bye.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: I have two role models both my grandmothers one is now approaching 99 she will be 99 in couple of months the other is 96 the way the approach life is fantastic they are very different personalities but amazing the way they look at things. So I continued I mean though they are the main role models my grandmothers I look at them and then I say ok what else do you need I mean at the age of 96 and 99 they are doing this. So these are all what keeps me. motivated I try to look at people who done quite well all the founders in the startups whether it is e-com or deal share I mean they let go of very comfortable lives to take on these challenges you know with no guarantee of success. We still do not know how long how success sustainable how this we all aim to be at the long term but they have taken it so you know so these are some things which. Second the first point which are this was the second point which are first one is to then first one is you need to continue this to sustain this. And here is where each person has to have his own or his or her own principles of how to lead life. Then only you will be able to manage. I have certain priorities in life. It is very clear for me. First is my family. I have always been in a nuclear family while my parents, my wife and last 16 years our son, very clear that is priority over everything else. Health. I would actually output health. family. Then third is I have a significant interest in sports, trekking and motorcycle and then comes everything else. So I don’t go for moving. It might sound extreme, but I typically don’t go out for movies. Uh, most of the evening parties, I find out some innovative excuse or something to avoid. Uh, I need my seven, eight hours of sleep. But if I have to spend time on work, then health, then family and then my other hobbies, I don’t have time for the other. So I have to make a choice.

Rohit Agarwal: rate.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: others. You know, so this is how I do, I watch movies 15 years after they have been released, after everybody says it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. I make an exception for Marvel movies because I have to go to those with my son. So these are the, so basically what this does is helps me keep a balance, keep my life on a certain path and very important to have the right people around me. I was again lucky enough.

Rohit Agarwal: Show.

Venkatesh Tarakkad: with my spouse being there for me. She’s a fantastic human being, so that helps stabilize this, sometimes my crazy thoughts. So that helps. So very important to have a support system, whether it is spouse, whether it is parents, whether it is friends, et cetera. It’s very important. So then that helps you sustain. I don’t think my, I think not, I would say that my energy levels, typically in most organizations, it is at the highest when compared to a lot of people. because I am able to balance these things.

Rohit Agarwal: Right. Very cool. Very interesting. What are your top three priorities from an organizational standpoint in 2023? What are maybe some of the key initiatives that you are looking to sort of execute?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: So, when you look at the top 3, 4, 1s there are a few things which are very specific in deal share and I need to make sure those are done in 2023. From a pure finance perspective I would say the ERP stabilization. So, we have gone live on SAP B1 now to make sure that that stabilizes like I told you there is quite a lot of interaction with the inventory management system etcetera. So, as an overall piece things have to work and that is extremelycriticalthat will be foundation even if I upgrade to a higher versionlaterthis is this is key this will prove that we can do things. So, that is extremely importantas an organization. Second is in this journey we also mayif you look atjourney towards an IPO etcetera eventually what happens is this is governed bystrong framework. also includes things like your robust IFC checklist, robust internal audit system, etc. We just started on this journey. You know your static product you can still get your accounts finalized, but lot of these things are important as a structural process because it’s about developing the culture of what finance should stand for. So this would be the second most and we have a lot long way to go. We have to put in policies, etc. I am also for example, I am working with a tech team. put the IT policies in place. Now, I do not want to tick mark, I want it to be practical which will be implemented. So, this is the second one which I would say. I would say the most important one is not even the finance part, but it is looking at the basic fine tuning the basic PMF itself for us. Like I said I mean online grocery nobody is corrected. So, we are also experimenting, we do a lot of experimentation. So, as part My personal time, maximum time will go into this to supporting, driving business, fine tuning, see which locations work, which locations don’t work, which assortments work, which don’t work, what can I do in terms of support processes to make sure, what analytics can we provide, what is the cash flow statement, what needs what, what is the RWA. So this and the, whatever I would say is confidence building of the PMF internally, investors is different thing that will come up. So this is going to be the big one is that specific type of industry. I would not have mentioned this if I was in metro but here we are a startup trying to get the business modifying the business etc. So this would be the most important.

Rohit Agarwal: Very cool. I think last question before we move into the lightning round. Are you hiring for any roles currently and what kind of qualities do you look for in individuals while hiring?

Venkatesh Tarakkad: So, we are not getting into any new roles as such, we are not doing new roles. We have couple of hires because of replacement and the good part is two people are living to start entrepreneurial journeys of their own. I actually admire them, they you know and very good guys. So, couple of people we are hiring. So, basically in the hiring space or when I want to hire, I have to keep in mind that startup. I need to have people who can build processes and work in uncertain situations. It should not be that every solution they have to refer to an SOP or a manual and do it. SOPs and manuals are very important long term that is what will work. But at this point of time I need people who will be able to be flexible and work things. So this is what I look at. So when we get CVs and we recruited a few people. So worried if they have always been in an ITC or an L and T which has got missing. I am more interested in seeing whether the person has the mindset to make the change. So here of course the interview process makes a big difference here because that is where you try to gauge whether the person is will be able to adapt or not. Second is the type of projects they can work on and the references what they tell. positive you know, but if it is a credible percent that person will also give the pluses and minuses both of the people whom we are joining. So, this is important the flexibility to do this. Third is typically not having a bias, but typically I would look at the lower end of an experienced spectrum currently. That gives an opportunity for the person not to be biased with previous thinking and also gives the person an opportunity to grow. I look at myself, I grew because I joined Metro at a relatively young age you know that helped me grow and organization was a relatively younger stage. So, these are certain things which I look at basically it has to be the mindset to be extremely flexible.