Credit Manager: 5 tips to make your boss see you as a key player
Take the high road
To become a person of influence, you must first and foremost know the environment in which your company operates, the forces at work and the issues at stake.
Delegate operational actions (debt collection, commercial information, field surveys, credit insurance, etc.) to one or more external partners if you can, so that you can devote more time to financial analysis and the identification of all possible opportunities to help reduce your company’s WCR.
Show yourself
If you want to gain autonomy and be rewarded, make yourself visible to your boss. He will only notice you if you make an effort to be seen. So make sure your management knows what you are doing, and the best way is to communicate it yourself regularly.
Add a large dose of cooperation to your actions
- Take charge of risk management in a broad way
Collaborate as much as possible with all the actors of the order-to-cash cycle to take charge of the risk management in a broad way, from the prospecting, the opening of the customer accounts, the update of the terms and conditions, the contractualization, through the delivery, the invoicing and up to the management of the litigations.
Start by listening to each other’s opinions, suggestions, expectations and the difficulties your colleagues face on a daily basis. They need to see you as a reliable and attentive partner, a concrete helper to facilitate this often complicated internal coordination between departments that pursue the same general objectives but lose sight of them because they do not have the same operational constraints.
- Develop a cash culture in your company
Next, make your colleagues aware of your company’s financial situation and the impact their actions can have, good or bad. If you don’t have the time or don’t feel like a coach to develop a cash culture in your company yourself, don’t hesitate to call on external consultants who will deliver a simplified finance course.
- Act as a bridge between all services related to the order-to-cash cycle
Globally, work ‘hand in hand’ with the different departments (commercial, legal, accounting, treasury, sales administration…), and regularly review the actions you have implemented together, you will increase trust between departments and You will ultimately reduce customer complaints and credit risks, collect payments faster and collect receivables more efficiently.
Become a networking pro
You are a Credit Manager and as such you have skills in the financial and legal fields? You know how to negotiate and you master communication and management techniques? That’s all very well, but being a good credit manager today also means knowing how to ‘network’. So don’t limit yourself to your own internal relationships, expand your network to the outside world. Assessing the creditworthiness of a prospect or customer does not stop with a study of their financial ratios. Give depth to your analysis by collecting information on the ground about your prospects and customers, directly from them, from their other business partners (customers, suppliers, etc.), or through your participation in professional associations(AFDCC, DFCG, AFTE, etc.).
Learn about foreign languages and cultures
Cultivate your learning of new languages and perfect the ones you already know. The business environment is more and more international, your daily life will be greatly simplified.
Even more so, if the start of the school year is synonymous with the search for new professional horizons, A multilingual Credit Manager who is constantly learning about legislative changes, the regulatory environment and country-specific credit risks, will always be able to pull its weight. Rare in a profession that has historically been reluctant to foreign languages Multilingual profiles are particularly sought after today, especially because they are more in line with the international development ambitions of companies as set by General Management!
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