In today’s volatile economic climate, CFOs must act swiftly. This structured 100-day plan guides financial leaders through resetting baselines, stabilising spending, reprioritising investments, and enabling faster decisions. With time-based phases, it equips organisations to respond confidently to inflation, demand shifts, and refinancing risks while preserving flexibility and enhancing decision-making.
Reading time: 5 minutes
Persistent volatility, from inflation and wage pressure to refinancing risk and softening demand, requires CFOs to reset expectations, preserve flexibility, and make faster, better-informed decisions. This plan offers a structured, time-based response.
The first priority is to reset financial expectations.
This means rebuilding forecasts based on current input costs, updated demand signals, and the real cost of capital. Scenarios should be stress-tested across plausible downside cases, particularly where refinancing risks, FX exposure, or liquidity pressure may be material. This period is also about setting clear risk boundaries: aligning leadership on where flexibility exists, and where it does not.
With a clear financial baseline in place, the focus shifts to identifying where meaningful cost flexibility exists without compromising core delivery.
This requires a structured review of the cost base, distinguishing between areas of deliberate investment and spend that no longer aligns with current priorities. Finance and procurement should work closely, ensuring spend is both intentional and sustainable. Scenario modelling should support realistic cost containment targets based on credible revenue and margin outcomes.
Investment plans must reflect revised economic conditions.
In-flight initiatives should be reviewed against updated hurdle rates and commercial relevance. Where returns are uncertain or unlikely to materialise within a reasonable timeframe, deferral or re-scoping may be appropriate. All investments should compete for capital in a more selective environment. Funding plans should be revisited to ensure sufficient headroom and resilience under conservative scenarios.
With immediate stabilisation underway, focus shifts to building readiness.
Financial planning should move to rolling forecasts and scenario-based decision frameworks. Leading indicators should be formalised as triggers for action. Governance must ensure short-term measures remain aligned to longer-term priorities, with clear ownership and integrated cadence across board reporting, capital planning, and performance management.
If you have any questions or if this is a challenge your business is facing, we’d love to chat!
Henry Bell
Principal Consultant
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