CFO Series: Essential Cost Containment - 5 Tech & 3 [NT] - NEW! - Webcast

Overview

We all want to make the organization more profitable, but do we do it the best way? Many simply hack away at costs and then repeat the same unwieldy process every eighteen months. Do our internal and external customers truly understand our numbers? There is a better way to communicate financial information, so they DO understand and take the proper actions. Building an effective team always results in improved performance, talent retention and reduces costs. We also discuss the ethics of creativity - is creativity good or bad or a mixed bag? We will discuss how, and specifically what, you can do to rein in costs and get the most from what the organization already has and remains ethical. These four sessions will help you become better at controlling the right costs and becoming more successful.

This day of the CFO Series will focus on these four topics:

• Improving Profitability the Right Way: How to Cut the Right Costs
• Building High-Performing Teams: Cohesive Teams Get Results
• Do Creative Accountants Belong in Prison?
• Storytelling Your Financials for Impact: Narrative Beats Numbers

This event is part of OSCPA's 2026 CFO Series, designed to provide a convenient, one-stop way for senior level financial managers and executives, CFOs and those who aspire to be CFOs, to choose multiple days of CPE with a single decision. Each day consists of a subject-matter expert, leading discussions about four different topics. The CFO Series features high-quality presentations and an interactive, executive level, colleague-to-colleague approach with case studies, group discussions, and team exercises.

Register by May 1 and save $20 of this webcast.

Register for the 2026 CFO Series Bundle and save up to $200 (that is $40 off each course)!

Highlights

Session 1: Improving Profitability the Right Way: How to Cut the Right Costs

• Understanding what the goal really is
  • Better planning, ready aim and then fire
• What are the crucial considerations
• Why do others in the organization hate to cut costs
• What are the 'ripple' effects
• What are the right costs to cut and not to cut
  • What are the more common mistakes made
  • The need to consider politics, culture, and strategy
  • Fourteen (14) different perspectives to utilize to cut costs efficiently
  • Over fifty (50) uncommon cost cutting possibilities
• How to prepare for the next cost cutting exercise
• A proven process to cut the right cost in an organization

Objectives:

1. Understanding how to choose which costs to cut and which not to cut.
2. Defining the role and purpose of each cost cutting exercise.
3. Review non-traditional approaches to cut costs.

Session 2: Building High-Performing Teams: Cohesive Teams Get Results

• What are the five clear signals that teamwork is broken
  • The pervasive myths about teams
• Why conflict is necessary for effective teams
• Why winning teams are built on and depend on trust
  • The value of assessments and diversity
• Your fifteen-step action plan to build trust and enhance teamwork
• Retaining your best talent
• The essential steps leaders must take to enable teamwork to flourish

Objectives:

1. Understanding the symptoms of poor teamwork.
2. Appreciating proven techniques to enhance cooperation, trust, communication, listening and teamwork.
3. Understanding that the best leaders are unselfish and put the team first.

Session 3: Do Creative Accountants Belong in Prison?

• Should accountants be creative
  • The pros and cons of creativity
• The inherent problems of creativity
  • Creativity is not an excuse
• The tangled correlations between creativity, ethics, and dishonesty
• The interrelationship between the Code of Professional Conduct and creativity
  • Citations from the Code of Professional Conduct
• What is the impact of creative accounting on our constituencies
• How to effectively and ethically harness creativity

Objectives:

1. Understanding how creativity may lead to unethical actions.
2. Understand the relationship between ethics and creativity.
3. Discover how to properly utilize creativity in a beneficial manner.

Session 4: Storytelling Your Financials for Impact: Narrative Beats Numbers

• Why does storytelling always beat data-dumping in financial communication
• Anatomy of a great financial story: structure, characters, and turning points
• The role of context, trends, and insights in financial messaging
• How Apple uses financial storytelling to engage stakeholders
• Visual tools and techniques to support your narrative
• Communicating with non-financial audiences: clarity without oversimplification

Objectives:

1. Understand the benefits of storytelling in financial communication.
2. Identify the elements of telling a story and relating them in a compelling financial narrative and apply these techniques to enhance board and executive presentations.

Prerequisites

At least six (6) months of professional financial statement analysis experience and/or at least six (6) months of professional experience in preparing or reviewing accounting processes and reports; experience working with internal clients or external clients and business leaders.

Designed For

Corporate financial leaders, financial managers, CEOs, CFOs, controllers, accountants, board members, advisors, and consultants; CPAs in public practice and CPAs in industry; business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals who are interested in learning more about how to cut costs, make reports understandable and understood, getting the most from the talent, managing creativity and ethics.

Objectives

See objectives listed above.