00:00Well, Haroon, you know, you and I have spoken a lot over the last couple of months around the big strategic challenges facing CFOs.
00:07And personally, I think a lot of these challenges are actually hidden challenges, the ones that don't necessarily show up in the numbers, but are really massive in terms of, and again, one of the biggest things you see happening across the market is this whole issue of, well, how do you get the right people to do the work in a finance team?
00:21And obviously, CPG has got its own specific issues, but generally, if you're a CPA firm, if you're, you know, big finance and accounting operation, finding the talent is the most difficult thing to do in the marketplace.
00:32What have you seen in terms of just over the last few years in terms of the US companies trying to solve it?
00:37Or first of all, recognize that problem if they are, and then trying to solve it?
00:41Ed, you're absolutely right. There is a general shortage of talent.
00:44I have my colleagues working in CPA firms who are, who tell me the problem and the lengths that they go to, to try to retain their existing staff.
00:54So this is an ongoing issue of the industry.
00:57Now, within the CPG world, for a CFO, it becomes more acute because a CPG accounting is very unique.
01:04And to find the resources who have CPG experience even narrows down the choices available in terms of hiring.
01:09And for a typical CPG company, if a CFO has to hire people who do not have the right experience, then obviously the data quality may get impacted in terms of how the transactions are processed because that particular CPG approach of processing data may not be followed.
01:24So overall, this is having good talent in the accounting world is a problem.
01:29And this is even, it is more, even more compounded for CPG companies because of the specialized knowledge required to run a CPG accounting for areas like trade promotions management, cost of, cost of manufacture and other, other unique, other areas unique to the CPG.
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