Dai Tri shared, for him, success in a career is simply a matter of contributing a little effort for the common development goal of the entire business that we accompany, when the business grows, we also develop ourselves. . However, this is not an easy thing because according to Mr. Tri, "Easy things don't come to me."
With CFO's Perspective meet Mr. Tran Dai Tri - Financial Accounting Manager at TakyFood - Tai Ky Flour - Food Joint Stock Company and discover the inspirational story of his career with a new perspective in the finance it!
Guest: Mr. Tran Dai Tri
Work experience:
– Director of Finance & Accounting at TakyFood
– FP&A Manager at Nova Consumer
– Assistant Finance Director at Transmex Group
– Finance Manager at Viettel Cambodia
Along the way, Mr. Dai Tri learned two great lessons for himself: "The only way to overcome difficulties or fears is to face it". And a motto of Viettel Group: “It is not important whether you are a lion or an antelope. When the sun rises, you should start running.” Thomas L. Friedman.
From the story of "no chance" and new opportunities open
He started from a student majoring in Finance - Banking of Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City. After graduating from school, he decided to take the entrance exam to banks in Saigon, but it didn't seem like he had a good luck so he just… failed. After that, he received a call from Viettel Group's personnel even though he did not apply here.
After 04 rounds of exams (IQ, English, Finance - Accounting, direct interview with Head Finance of Viettel Group), he passed the position of Finance - Accounting specialist of Viettel. In nearly 07 years working here, he has 5 years working in Cambodia market with the position of Head of Finance Department in charge of banking capital and cash flow for the corporation with the size of cash flow at that time. about $400M/year.
At the end of his 5-year term, he returned to Saigon, and was invited to work at Transimex in charge of the group's budget and member companies. This is a leading corporation in Logistics in Vietnam with more than 40 years of operation and development.
Some time later, he joined Nova Consumer Group to be in charge of Financial Planning (FP&A) for the product lines and cash flow management of the group. This is a startup of Nova Group with the ambition to become a giant in manufacturing and distribution in FMCG and Agriculture.
Bringing Vietnamese enterprises to the world: Achievements and international vision
After completing a number of projects for Nova Consumer, he fell in love with TakyFood and was in charge of the Finance - Accounting section of the business. Accompanying that is the goal of making the business become the largest producer and distributor (manufacturing & distribution) of the food powder segment in Vietnam and bringing Vietnamese agricultural products to the world. Currently, TakyFood has exported to more than 20 countries around the world: Japan, Korea, the United States, Australia, Canada, Laos, Cambodia, Czech, ...
After a period of accompanying TakyFood, the business also has certain achievements, for the first time in the list of Fast500 (500 fastest growing enterprises in 2022); For the first time, we are honored to receive the Vietnam National Brand Award 2022, this is an important step to bring the product to the world.
We really need to define “What is success?”
To answer the question "how to be successful like today?", honestly, do you think we should go back to the definition of what success is?
With him, Success in a career is simply a matter of making a small contribution to the common development goal of the entire enterprise. As businesses grow, so do we. And to do that, it is never easy, because he always thinks that easy things do not come to him.
Back to the 2 big lessons he shared initially. First, “The only way to overcome a difficulty or fear is to face it.” And always keep the thought “never give up”. In life or in work, we will definitely have to face many difficulties and challenges, some difficulties are so heavy that there are times when we think we cannot overcome, or give up, choose children. softer road? But really, the only way to overcome that fear, is to face it, always think positively.
Experience and skills are key
And the next question is, so how to overcome it? You should manage goals for any job or task in life and work. Having a goal is very important, then brainstorm the steps and processes to implement it. Next, break down the tasks and tackle each one until you complete the big goal.
Then you will see that it is not too difficult to complete a goal. Of course, if it's the overall goal of the organization, you won't have to do it alone. Always improve your financial techniques and ability to communicate and negotiate with your stakeholders.
Second, “It is not important whether you are a lion or an antelope. When the sun rises, you should start running.” – Thomas L. Friedman Life is always changing, so is technology, and so is finance and accounting, if we stand still, we are falling behind. Therefore, there are 3 main factors for you to always improve and upgrade yourself every day to succeed in the Finance - Accounting industry: experience, financial technology and the ability to communicate with stakeholders.
Going from small steps to bigger things
Technology is always changing, as he discussed above, as long as you stand still, you are already lagging behind. But how to ensure that the company will always be in sync with the latest technology trends is not an easy problem to solve.
Technology is a multifaceted world, and to apply technology to every department of an enterprise requires a significant investment in resources and people, especially for local companies. Especially manufacturing companies, which have invested hundreds of billions of dong in factories, machinery and equipment, now you want to synchronize all these production lines to follow the latest trend. things are not easy.
But the trend is still inevitable, many brothers and sisters still ask him if he should digitalize his business or not, his answer is always yes, because it is inevitable. I understand, To do digital transformation for a business, it takes a huge investment in resources, but we can do it step by step, small step to big step.
Exploit the maximum financial digitalization potential of your business
First, you have to invest in building technology infrastructure, businesses need to evaluate and upgrade existing technology infrastructure. To ensure speed and stability, upgrade computer hardware and production machinery, and deploy appropriate software to support production and management processes. This part a lot of money!
Next, you can start thinking about building a data warehouse, automation technology, IoT or automatic sensors, artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML)... enterprise-wide processes.
Besides, training personnel with enough skills and knowledge to use that technology is also a story. He always encourages his employees to be creative in their work. And encourage organizations to create creative funds, creative festivals, creative banks, etc. so you can present your ideas.
Those creations don't have to be anything big, they can just be creations to improve your own or your department's performance and that's enough. Hundreds of thinking heads are better than 1-2 heads.
Finally, information security & safety is paramount for any business whether digitally transformed or not.
The application of technology in finance - accounting is now very diverse and useful. Follow me, Technology is to serve people, and the most important thing for the technology to work is still input data, raw data, he called it raw data. They can be entered in many ways, but he sees the roots still have to be from people, that is, must be done by an accountant. It's just that with technology, that data entry is digitized, so it works faster, reducing errors more.
In general, the accountant is still the one who inputs the data and is stored at the data warehouse, then other processes of accounting, transfer, financial reporting, asset management, and debt management are carried out. automation. Humans are the ultimate controllers of whether the output meets requirements or not? If not, it will be adjusted at the data entry step.
From there, the finance and management department will have many stories to analyze, depending on the depth of the data. Many companies he knows can use AI or machine learning (ML) to create analytical and predictive reports as they wish.
You see companies that provide accounting solutions like Bizzi provided a very good solution in Manage invoices payable. Bizzi created a bot that automatically reads information on invoices and inputs into accounting software to reduce the risk of errors. Thereby, improving the working efficiency of payment accountants, greatly reducing the time in the process of approving payment for suppliers.
Another application of technology in finance and accounting that you may not have noticed is the online payment service of banks. They bring convenience, security and safety to corporate treasury operations.
Besides, as he said, as long as your data warehouse is large enough, you will be able to apply a lot to financial management such as budget management, analysis, forecasting, asset management, auditing. control corporate financial risks, etc. At the same time, the efficiency is maximized if you have a team of staff who are proficient in using the benefits that data brings.
In the digital age, the larger the data warehouse, the more data can be collected from software such as CRM, SCM, DMS, etc. The analysis of consumer trends, sales trends, marketing, etc. to make timely and accurate decisions is always a huge competitive advantage in the market, creating resilience and being able to lead the trend, and even orient consumer behavior. use.
>> See more: The role of the CFO in the new technology era
As he emphasized above, technology serves people. He thinks that technology at the current stage can partially replace, or more accurately, assist people in repetitive tasks, making that work faster, more accurate, and improving efficiency. work. As for the alternative, he thinks this stage is not good enough.
Similarly, in the financial sector, technology can make forecasts and analysis based on raw data sources. It is important to forecast what, what to analyze, it still has to be decided by humans and set up for technology to serve their ultimate management purposes.
Of course, the application of technology can reduce personnel costs, if before, you needed 3-4 payment accountants, now you only need 1-2 payment accountants to handle the whole process. set of work with the support of technology.
Previously, 10 years ago, before working as an accountant, he still had to print, bind and store 2 copies of sales invoices. But now, there is no need for personnel for that anymore, because there are already electronic invoices, and stored on the data warehouse already.
As technology evolves, the CFO role will remain the same
According to him, the only thing that changes is the way a CFO works, but the role does not change.
What technology can help you, you will let technology do, you will spend less time in that role, and focus on other roles that technology cannot support.
More specifically, technology helps financial accounting departments automate processes, which can help automate financial tasks such as accounting management, financial reporting, and transaction processing. This reduces manual work and enhances the CFO's work efficiency, allowing him to spend more time on strategy and data analysis.
CFO drives technology development
The CFO has the role of orienting so that technology projects must ensure support for the company's sustainable development, avoiding rambling and wasteful investment.
In his opinion, the CFO in the current era needs to understand technology and technology trends well, thereby giving strategic advice to the leadership in the investment so that it must bring growth and efficiency benefits. results and bring competitive advantages to enterprises after investment.
At the same time, the CFO also has to best assess the resources of the business to decide whether to invest in technology projects, avoid overspending, or invest at a stage that is not really suitable for the business. the actual situation of the enterprise.
Finally, promoting the company's technology development needs cooperation and smooth information exchange between the CFO and CTO of the company, because the CTO is the one who understands the best. needs, solutions, potential and expected value of technology projects.
Sincerely thank you for sharing about the process of mastering technology in the journey of financial digitization!
>> See more: CFO's perspective: A new opportunity to create a turning point in my career
Through the short stories and sharings of CFOs in the CFO Perspective series, we hope to bring readers interesting information and new perspectives on outstanding issues and new trends of CFOs. Finance and Accounting majors.
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