What steps, both short term and long term, should Mick Powers take to

build an effective "horizontal" finance team across his organization?

25 Locations
90 Professionals
Missed financial targets by December 2002, incurred $20m in financial
write offs
The AERO Aftermath unit was a key component of the AERO Groups
Aerospace portfolio. Commercial and military aerospace
HQ is in New Mexico
Resource located at Sites, USA, Canada, Asia and Europe
Each site had 1.Local Manager 2.Site Finance Leader 3.Human
Resource Leader 4.Site Operational Leader 5.Direct Labour
Bob- Operational President for Aero Aftermath
Believed in having business operate locally
Competitive advantage of quickly address customer issue, providing
low price and highly reliable service
Each site had a controller responsible for timely and accurate
accounting. Financial planning and analysis for the site
Goals and objectives assigned at site level and wasnt reviewed
Hiring wasnt done by HQ, little coordination between HQ and sites in
regards to finance activities
Competence of controller hired was not in accordance with the whole
organization but rather was based on what the local sites needed.
ISSUES arising:
1,Sven the controller from Germany- $15m issues and list
2.Alliance between Aero Group and Logistics group. Deal was shaky as
no one could determine who approved the alliance proceedings or
document to back it. No one person in this organization could be held
accountable
3.New $5m accrual unexplained on the balance sheet
4.Unauthorized auditing at $500k which wasnt authorized. CEO must
approve this to show that there is no conflict of interest
5.Reporting relationship had not yet been defined
There was not one set criteria for hiring these groups of finance people

What steps, both short term and long term, should Mick Powers take to
build an effective "horizontal" finance team across his organization?
7s
Strategy

Structure

System

Shared
Value
Skills

Staff

Style

Steps
1.The goals, mission and vision of the AERO and the
Aftermath unit needs to be stated clearly to all the sites
in order to have it flowing seamlessly. Fish rots from the
head, if the top cannot set and make the bottom abide
by rules then this problem will continue. Seeing as all
this issues are arising, doing this will help in the short
run to start fixing these problems and then in the long
run to avoid them from occurring again.
As you look through the case, we notice that the
reporting structure was pretty much non-existent and
really informal. For AERO to move forward this structure
needs to be changed. As much as the local sites cater to
the needs of customers where the operate; decisions
taken that impact the business as a whole must should
be approved by headquarters
Accountability is key for this system to be changed.
Headquarters instead of the local site should approve
financial audits, that way any information lacking can be
spotted and whoever is responsible can explain.
This ties into the strategy in a way. AERO needs to state
the dos and donts of its company and can punish
departments/sites that are not sticking to this.
Skills needed for a controller needs to be aligned with
the staff hiring criteria. AERO site controllers are
responsible for timely and accurate accounting and they
also take care of planning and analysis for the site.
People hired need to posses skills that align with the role
of the job
The criteria for hiring staff needs to follow the core
shared value of the company, to hire people who are
competent to carry out tasks that will make the
company grow. So in the short term, sites with staff that
are not abiding by the rules of the company (like those
in Germany) can be fired and replaced.
Seeing as the company operates out of New Mexico (HQ)
and is spread across the US, Asia and Europe, it is
possible to ascertain that the working styles of these
cultures are different and the market needs are different
too. So some leniency should be shown to some extent

but at the same time the norms and shared value should
be enforced.