An evening with Ms Guna Thantry
On May 5, we had an insightful conversation with Ms Guna Thantry, who has been the CFO of Schenck Process for the past eight years. Schenck Process is a German MNC, which provides materials handling/ engineering solutions to customers in Industries like Cement, Steel, Mining, Food, Chemicals and Plastics. Schenck manufactures the equipment at its factories located in Bengaluru and Gurgaon.
Ms Thantry spoke about the changing face of finance, the emerging careers in Finance and what is expected from Finance professionals.
About Ms Guna Thantry
Ms Guna Thantry is a chartered accountant with 25 years of experience and has worked for various organisations (besides Schenck) like Hewlett Packard, SAP Consulting, Citrix and Expleo.
Her quest for learning and creating excellence has enabled her to overcome multiple challenges during her early years. She self-funded her education by working full time after her 12th standard for two years and then completed her graduation. Thereafter, she worked for six months and gained admission to pursue the Chartered Accountant course with Deloitte in Bangalore in 1992. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1995.
During her career, Ms Thantry has developed finance teams in all the organizations where she has worked and introduced processes for scaling up. She has experience in working capital management and funding capex requirement for expansion in and outside India (Argentina, Hungary and in Dalian while working in SAP). Her quest for excellence and rooting out inefficiencies in internal processes has given more than satisfactory results in all the organisations she has worked for.
Ms Thantry is part of Rotary International, a voluntary service organisation for the past 20 years. She has contributed to the various uplifting programmes which Rotary organises including eradication of Polio, Happy Schools, Scholarships to the deserving students, Vision care centres etc. She truly believes that all are born equal. It is our duty to create opportunities to bring out the talent of every individual!
Ms Thantry was conferred "Woman of Excellence" award by Indian Achievers' Forum in 2022.
Careers in Finance and Accounting
After the traditional choices like engineering and medicine, finance is now emerging as the preferred choice. Many CFOs are becoming CEOs. There is a growing feeling that Finance professionals have the holistic understanding needed to lead a business. In a borderless economy, where companies operate across countries, finance professionals who understand rules and regulations across geographies are increasingly in demand. Earlier, finance professionals were generalists. Now specialization is the norm.
Careers in Accounting
Accounts Payables
- Indirect tax
- Direct tax - TDS / Withholding tax
- Employee reimbursement
Even though the accounts payables process has become automated, verification of transactions still needs professionals. Knowledge of indirect tax is involved. Earlier different states would issue their own circulars. So knowledge of the local language was necessary. Things have changed after the introduction of GST. While indirect taxes have now become uniform across the country, a good understanding of the GST framework, the rates as well as the returns is necessary. The finance professional must be able to answer the queries of the auditors. The vendor should also be GST compliant.
In case of direct tax, tax deduction at source is involved. To configure the system properly, knowledge of TDS and its applicability is essential.
Employee reimbursement
There should be clarity on what can be reimbursed and what cannot. Knowledge of tools is important. Again, they should be configured properly. A full-fledged ERP team may not be there in the company. So the finance professional should know how to leverage the software. More so as several global players now offer software in this area.
Payroll
- Direct tax - TDS / Withholding tax
Good knowledge of direct taxes is needed, especially about the applicability of taxes to perquisites. Often, this function is outsourced. If someone is working for such an outsourcing company, they should have the knowledge necessary to answer queries. There should be a good understanding of the Income Tax implications for individuals.
Accounts Receivables
- DSO (Daily Sales Outstanding)
- Cash generation
- Legal knowledge – Interpretation of Contracts /PO
It is important to monitor the outstandings closely. The system should be configured to send automated reminders. Legal knowledge, especially of contracts is important. Interpretation of the terms of the purchase order is important. The DSO must be monitored carefully. Bankers are reluctant to lend when the DSO goes high.
Commercial
- LC Documents
- Import / Export compliance
- Bank Guarantee expertise
This can be an excellent career path. In this area, a good knowledge is necessary of: LC documents, bank guarantees, import/export compliance requirements, INCO terms, FEMA, Customs Acts.
Careers in Finance Treasury
- Funds management – Foreign exchange management
- Credit rating
- Credit facilities management
- Working capital
MIS reporting – Budgeting / Forecast / Reporting- Decision making support
Informed decisions are the best decisions. So reporting is important. This calls for good data quality and representing the data in the needed format. ERP systems must be configured to get the data needed seamlessly.
Budgeting and forecasting are other important areas. Forecasting again depends on good data. Forecasting needs a good understanding of the data as well as business acumen.
Benchmarking
It is important to understand how other companies are doing. Benchmarking must be done in areas like profit margins, credit rating, DSO, etc.
Compliance
- Statutory compliances
- Audits
This is becoming important across the world. The different tracks include statutory compliance, Labour act, etc. Often it makes sense to start with internal audit, get an appreciation of the different functions and then choose the function in which one can specialize.
Tools
- ERP
- Size of the Company
- Knowledge of processes
- Compliance software
- Knowledge of compliance
- Employee portal - reimbursement
- Budgeting / Consolidation Software
There are different types of tools available, as indicated above. As Ms Thantry emphasised repeatedly during the session, these must be configured carefully to get the best results.
Shared services
- Payroll
- Accounts Payable
- Accounts Receivable
- Statutory compliances
- Company Secretarial
This is another important career track. While company secretaries handle many of the key secretarial functions, some of the activities can also be handled using shared services.
Q&A
As a young CA, Ms Thantry aspired to be the CFO of a company. As she progressed in her career, she realized that one must fight for opportunities. There were many competent people around and she had to compete with them. She worked honestly and gave her 100%. Her general advice to us is that we must keep learning, demonstrating our capabilities and understand carefully what the organization needs. There are great opportunities for finance professionals in manufacturing, services and even with a regulator like RBI. We must be clear about what we are aspiring for.
Ms Thantry singled out cash as the top priority. Cash is powerful. It enables us to take quick decisions. Without cash, key investment decisions tend to get postponed. So, it is important to realize payments from customers quickly. In Japan, there is an unwritten rule that suppliers must be paid in 30 days. But in India despite having so many industry bodies, we do not make payments promptly. We hold each other’s money. We should not depend on the government to solve this problem through regulation.
Scaling requires good processes. However, people in general do not like processes. They are resistant to change. But without good processes, the organization simply cannot grow. Strong visionary leadership is required. Ms Thantry gave the example of Mr Subir Raha, the former chairman of ONGC. He went ahead and implemented an ERP system despite huge resistance from employees.
Capital is also needed for scaling up. To a related question, Ms Thantry mentioned that many Indian companies do not have any ambition to scale up. That is why they remain closely held and do not go the market for funding. Upto a turnover of say Rs 200 crores, companies can remain private. But beyond that, they need capital from the markets and professionals to run the company. This is exactly what happened to Marico, which was once a family managed company.
Responding to a related question, Ms Thantry gave the example of the Manipal group of Udipi, where she grew up. Under Mr TMA Pai, the group scaled impressively. But after his death, the appetite to take risk and scale up has been missing. Hopefully, our entrepreneurial structure will become stronger over time and we may see more risk taking and scaling in the coming decades. Instead of depending on Blackstone to recruit our students, we may have own hedge funds and ETFs.
Ms Thantry felt that we should not be worried. Despite many activities going online, banks are still generating jobs. In any case, India is in a good place to be in. We are the outsourcing destination for the world. India has young talent who can speak English. So, the future is bright.
To a related question, Ms Thantry mentioned that it sounds odd when young people say that they have forgotten a concept during a job interview. Educational institutions should inculcate an analytical bent of mind among students. The focus should not be on remembering things. Rather it should be on applying the mind in such a way that a concept will never be forgotten. Open book exams are a good option to try out.
In response to another question, Ms Thantry emphasised that knowledge of finance is critical for career success. Every student should be exposed to finance. Senior leaders are ready to come to the campus and share their perspectives with students.
Ms Thantry agreed that this is unfortunate. She gave the example of Kingfisher which did not even bother to deposit the PF contribution of employees in the EPF. This is a criminal offence. Implementation of laws has been lax till date. Hopefully, with the emergence of a young and aware workforce, things will improve over time.
Thanks to Make in India and the China +1 strategy, more MNCs are looking at India to derisk their supply chain and set up their operations. But we must inspire their trust. For example, we must improve our infrastructure. It is not just about asking the government to do things. It is also about raising our voice and becoming more demanding. We must demand quality and become a quality conscious country.
The CFO plays the role of the guardian. The CEO is often focused on growing the company. If the CEO and CFO work together, they can achieve wonders. Then the deals they strike will also be value adding.
Accounts people must comply with rules. When they raise an objection and point out what is laid down in the policy, employees do not like it. The only way to handle many of the ticklish issues (like employee reimbursement) is to make the process faceless and depend more on tools. This way, unnecessary friction can be avoided.