In two companies, Nick Brignola, has shown the power of FP&A steering big ticket medical acquisitions. Firstly, almost a decade ago, Nick led FP&A at manufacturing medical company, Schering-Plough, which was snapped up by fellow pharmaceutical player, Merck in a $41.1 billion deal. Then in June 2022, FP&A was center stage again. At Cloudmed, Nick’s FP&A team oversaw the Atlanta-based healthcare revenue recovery provider being acquired by Revenue cycle management company R1 RCM in a $4.1 billion deal. In this straight-talking episode Nick reveals the secret inside story of FP&A and M&A in closing deals (he has previously been involved in smaller deals as the buyer, such as Cloud-Med’s deals to land Databound, a healthcare technology company specializing in Robotic Process Automation). He also discusses:
- How I got to 1% Forecast Accuracy in Pharma and the lessons others can take.
- The vital metrics anyone in pharma manufacturing need to know
- What are the biggest challenges, positives and negatives between Corporate FP&A vs Business Unit (or operational FP&A)?
- FP&A Vs Sales The secret to truly challenge your sales team (productively)
- His take on building the most effective and dynamic FP&A team that brings results
Paul Barnhurst:
Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A Today, I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy and you are listening to FP&A Today. FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails, the financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. Every week we welcome a leader from the world of financial planning and analysis, and discuss some of the biggest stories and challenges in the world of FP&A. We will provide you with actionable advice about financial planning and analysis today. This is going to be your go-to resource for everything, FP&A I am thrilled to welcome today’s guest on the show, Nick Brignola. Nick, welcome to the show.
Nick Brignola:
Paul. Thank you. Appreciate you inviting me and look forward to the discussion today.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, I’m excited to have the discussion as well. So, a little bit about Nick’s background. Nick got an undergrad degree in business Logistics from Penn State University, an MBA from LSU. He currently resides in the Dallas area. He’s worked for a number of different companies, including Caris Life Sciences, Solera, and Cloudmed (acquired in June 2022 by R1 RCM in a $4.1 billion deal). I actually had the opportunity to work with them for a couple years at, uh, Solera ( vehicle lifecycle management SaaS, data, and services). He’s currently the senior Vice President of Finance and Operations at Cloudmed (helps healthcare systems maximize outcomes in a complex financial world). So maybe Nick, you could take us a little bit more through your background and how you ended up in FP&A
Nick Brignola:
Yeah, so it was a bit of a circuitous route, but was fortunate enough that when I did my MBA at Louisiana State, I was recruited out of, of LSU. I got an MBA in internal auditing, and I was recruited to a company at the time called Schering Plough Corp, which was a pharmaceutical manufacturer, a global company. And I spent a couple years in their internal audit department doing operational audits, primarily in the US as well as at a number of their international subsidiaries. And at Schering Plough they really looked at their internal audit group as a training ground for future finance professionals. There’s a lot of organizations out there that have like financial leadership development programs. Like GE has one and several the other large Fortune 500 companies also have them.
But Schering didn’t have something like that. What they typically had though, was a, was the internal audit group. I spent a couple years there and once I was looking to try to get out of internal audit, there were opportunities that were available in finance. And so, I ended up in my first finance role as a senior analyst supporting, logistics, as well as, supporting quality assurance at Schering transportation compliance. So, I ended up into finance, going into finance there. And, and ultimately here I am 22, I think 22 years later, I’ve, I I’ve stayed in finance ever since that first FP&A role
Paul Barnhurst:
So, what, what’s kept you in finance all that time? What is it that you’ve liked about finance and FP&A
Nick Brignola:
So, honestly, Paul, if I go back to being an undergrad, I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. mean, I went into logistics honestly, because at the time, Penn State’s program logistics was ranked number one in the country. And I wasn’t really a phenomenal student in undergrad. I did okay, but nothing to write home about. And so, I honestly didn’t really like there nothing interested me in terms of work. And you know, my father had a small consulting firm and, and he effectively did audit work. And I got into auditing at that time with, with his company and really enjoyed that piece, which was talking to people, learning about their business and trying to ultimately make it better. And from a finance standpoint, from a young age, I really enjoyed numbers and enjoyed math and that type of thing.
And, and I was fortunate enough to be able to turn the audit background into a finance career. And look, I really enjoy the analysis piece of finance, and I enjoy the numbers. And I’ve got a, I don’t know if you wanna say it’s a blessing or a curse, but I don’t forget a number. But when I see a number, I don’t forget it. For my team, it’s probably a curse, for me it’s a blessing. But that’s what I really enjoy about finance, which is literally working with the operations teams on a, a day to day basis, really trying to understand their business and challenging them to be better and challenging my team to be better and come, you know, be able to come to them with, with options on this is how I see things. And these are the options where I think we can, we can become better, and ultimately look its operations decision, right? But it’s our opportunity and our obligation to provide them optionality in their business, but also to, you know, help enable them to become better.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, that makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, mentioning consulting FP&A is a lot of ways like an internal consultant, right? You’re providing optionality. And I really like how you said, you know, it’s your, not only you enjoy it, but it’s your opportunity and obligation to push the operations teams and your teams to be their best, to give ‘them options and to help them achieve, you know, the strategic objectives and the financial plans of the company.
So, I know you’ve worked in a number of different industries. I know earlier you mentioned the pharmaceutical industry. Maybe can you talk a little bit about like what the key metrics were that you would track in that industry and kind of how FP&A a works in the pharmaceutical industry? I know that’s a little different than a lot of other industries.
Nick Brignola:
Yeah. So, one of the key metrics specifically in, in pharma, especially on the commercial side of the business, is really around prescriptions. And that data, you can get that data daily, which is really not that good. The daily data, there’s a sample of, I don’t remember how many pharmacies or sample data, which provide daily data, weekly data, and monthly, or the two best pieces of data that you can get. So, you buy the data from, used to be a company called IMS Health. They’re now called IQVIA. Trying to remember the other one, company, there’s another one Wolters Kluwer where you can buy data from. And they both have sets of pharmacies that they work with, uh, ultimately to obtain the data on a, a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
And you’re using that data really to understand one, hat you’re driving in terms of growth around, your RXs, your, your prescriptions. And, and there’s two separate types of prescription data. There are new prescriptions, and then there’s your total prescriptions. Because look, Paul, if I, if I go to the doctor and I get a prescription, right, and, and I fill it, well, that’s a new prescription because it’s the first time I’ve ever done it. And then, you know, what, what’s the, the, the persistency around that from a patient perspective. So, know how many news turn into totals over time, It’s another metric. And then ultimately, if you think about, you know, how operations is working in, in your commercial organization, you’re looking at things like from a metric standpoint, how many calls a day are your teams, your sales teams make you?
Um, and how does that translate into to prescriptions and your cost per call? All those measurements on the commercial side of the business that ultimately help drive your forecast. And let say this is that, you know, I was part of a joint venture for almost six years when I was at Schering and the joint venture were for two cholesterol lowering products, lipid lowering products, one that was named Vytorin , the other one was called Zetia. Both products at this point are off patent, but they were, the, the joint venture was with Merck. Merck ultimately ended up buying Schering in a $50 billion deal. And those two products, when I joined the team, the joint venture, there were finance people on the Merck side. There were, you know, I was the really, the first outside of that. We had a leader, we had a, a director a senior director of, of FP&A. I was the first person on the US team as a manager of FP&A that at that point, and I brought in an analyst. We effectively created our own one stop shop for our marketing and commercial teams as it related to those two products. And ultimately forecast not just our product, but every product that was part of the category and would provide a, a daily, because we got to the point where we actually were measuring hat our wholesalers were doing on a daily basis. And there’s three wholesalers in the us in, in the US marketplace that are effectively responsible for 90 plus percent of the buys. That’s AmerisourceBergen. These are all publicly trading companies, Cardinal Health and McKesson, the three are all in the top. I mean, McKesson and Cardinal, and I think ABC also, they’re all Fortune 15 companies.
Okay. Yeah. Couple are Fortune 10. So, they’re huge companies with very low margins. Okay. In terms of how they operate. But we were forecasting what their buys were going to be because we knew when they were going to buy, typically on a, a Monday, Wednesday or maybe a Tuesday Thursday, trying to forecast our prescriptions in our average number of pills in a prescription, because it’s not necessarily 30 because people have 90 day supplies. And being able to understand what our wholesale acquisition costs was, what we were selling out to them, and be able to then provide commentary on a daily basis back to our, our management team. So, no one else within the company was doing that. Right.? They were looking at weekly data. What they weren’t necessarily looking at wholesale buys. And when we saw blip happen in a day, we would then reach out and see like what happened to McKesson.
Like McKesson was supposed to buy this much. We had a daily forecast on our business. Okay. So those are just some of the metrics. And we were, from a forecast accuracy standpoint, we were less than 1% from a forecast accuracy standpoint. That probably got me spoiled from a forecast accuracy standpoint, but it’s now something that I use as a, you know, an example to my teams today, in terms of just from an FP&A standpoint, forecast accuracy and really knowing the inputs and the drivers of your model to really understand how you, uh, forecast and measure that to always try to become better.
Paul Barnhurst:
That’s a great example. And that’s amazing, you know, to be so close and a lot of data that you had to put together to be able to do that. And I like how you said, really understanding the inputs, right? You have to understand the business and have those driver-based models. You’re not always going to be within 1%. Every business is different Right. Obviously of how accurate you can be, how stable, how hyper growth, what are they going through.? But knowing the inputs and knowing the business and the assumptions behind them allows you to manage it regardless of whether you’re 1% or 10% off. And that’s really the important thing is being able to manage it.
Nick Brignola:
That’s right.
Paul Barnhurst:
So, you know, I noticed during your career, and I know when we worked at Solera, you had a little bit of a kind of an operations role. You’ve done a few different operations in the sales and the revenue side. So maybe can you talk a little bit about the difference between the functions? Because I’ve seen it so different in each company. I’ve seen companies where little bit of FP&A does, some of the sales stuff, does a little bit of revenue. Sometimes they may be doing a little bit of what sits in FP&A. So maybe talk about those lines, how you see them working together, and just your thoughts there in general.
Nick Brignola:
Yeah. So yeah, I think every company is different, Paul, in terms of how commercial or sales is, is supported. I’ve had the opportunity in my career to have sales operations report up through me from an operation standpoint and analytics. But also, you know, at other point in times like, look, just traditional, support of sales. The way that I view support from a standpoint in terms of commercial is, look there’s another I actually am a little bit different in terms of how I view FP&A and, you know, our role within an organization as it relates to commercial or as it relates even to the operation. But speak, just talking about sales and, and revenue. Look I think it’s important to really understand one, just depending on the type of company you’re in, what you’re, as we talked a little bit earlier about inputs and what the forecast might look like from your sales teams.
I’ve been around a lot of sales teams, and a lot of times the sales teams will over forecast, right? They think that they can sell ICE to an Eskimo, and that’s great. It’s our responsibility at FP&A a to really challenge them, those, those assumptions and really come back with like, we need a view. Okay, it’s always important for us to have a view. The operation or the, you know, or the, the operators or the sales teams will always have their own view, but it’s important for us to also have one. And I think what’s, what’s, what’s critical as it relates to sales is really pressure test the assumptions that they have versus what our own assumptions would be. And when I see, just depending on the industry that you’re talking, talking about, I mean here, you know, on, on the, on the SaaS side, the world, you know, bookings is a number that people look like that, that look at, it’s no different than in the, the, you know, the current business.
And I mean, we look at bookings too, right? But also, we need to understand how bookings turn into revenue, Right? And does that, you know, especially as it leads to a software type company, like how long does it take from a booking to turn into revenue? Right? You need to understand that piece. From an FP&A standpoint also as we talk about revenue, you need to understand what your attrition looks like, right? And, I remember being, uh, one time in my career where, like when I started a new role, I asked for the budget and I literally, you know, I, I didn’t get much other than like an Excel workbook, a worksheet, not even a book, a worksheet, and said, Well, you know, where’s the attrition here? One, where’s the attrition? Two, where the, where’s the assumptions that sort of built these revenue numbers?
And there was, there was nothing. Right? Now when I think about planning revenue, and I, and I drill this into my team, but also into our operators. Guys need to think about a number of things. One, your current base, whatever that is, right? Your current base of customers, and how much revenue are you driving through them? And, you know, are there any issues around that? Two, you have to think about your attrition rate and your churn. What does that look like over the last 12 months, 20 months for your customers? And you need to figure that in. And also, you need to think about your current customer base, and are there some that are already giving you signals that you may lose, Okay. Because of one reason or another, maybe a competitive set is out there trying to sell them something. Or look, you’re just not getting the feedback from your customer that you were 12 months ago.
Is there an opportunity or a risk around price? So, can you take price with this current customer? Or is there potential for pricing compression with the customer? Because maybe you have multiple applications that you sell to the customer as an example, or multiple products. And maybe to get another product in, you need to take price down on one of your current existing products. Are you thinking about that when you’re building out your sales plan? And then four. Is there a hedge? Is there something else maybe we’re not thinking about that you need to put in? And as we build those things out, one, it helps, you know, it helps the operations teams really think through all of their assumptions and all the drivers into their business to generate revenue.
But it also gives them the feeling that, look, you as an FP&A partner are thinking about those things, right? You’re not just trying to hold them to some, some high number, but we’re thinking about these things and ‘m a big believer in setting a, a plan or a budget or a forecast that is 95% achievable. Can there be some stretch? Sure. Okay. But that stretch should not be some number that there’s no way in heck you’re ever going to, you’re ever going to get there. So, what are all the drivers that are, that are really, you know, and then a bookings number as we started with, right? What’s the new bookings? And look, a lot of companies today don’t have a pipeline that they can see out 12 or 18 months. They just don’t, ok. So, but look, you got salespeople, and you know, those people are going to sell something.
So, you need to make some assumptions around that. And I, that’s, you know, as I deal with our operations teams, uh, on a daily basis, that’s part of the, the discussion point. And look, if you don’t believe somebody’s going to sell something, great, I’ll go to the commercial team and tell them they need to eliminate people. Okay? But they’re there with a job every day to try to build their pipeline. And, you know, I think it’s important that you’re then measuring also on the sales side, ow does a booking really turn into revenue? And look, at the end of the day, some, sometimes, sometimes a sales rep will overestimate what he or she is going to deliver through a booking, Right? So, you better be measuring that too, Okay. In terms of what percentage of the time are they really achieving, or what percentage of the total booking are they achieving? Because that’s also going to inform you from a forecast standpoint as to the accuracy of the new business. I mean, there’s a lot of things that go into that forecast from a revenue perspective.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. No, there’s a lot of great things. And what I really kind of took away from your answer there is, you know, FP&A our job is to understand all the inputs that go into a forecast to be able to pressure test it and to challenge and work with the business to help achieve it.
Nick Brignola:
That’s
Paul Barnhurst:
Correct. At the end of the day, and I really, you know, I appreciate all the different things you went into, and you mentioned, especially, you know, sometimes having to discount what sales gives you. Because they are estimates. They may be like we think the business will be 10,000 from this customer a month. And you go back, and you do some analysis and oh, for the last two years they’ve averaged 40% of whatever they said. Right? And you’re like, Okay, so I know I need to discount that.
Nick Brignola:
That’s right.
Paul Barnhurst:
And so, yeah, definitely that, that’s a big one. So, I appreciate that answer. And I agree with you. You know, sales revenue, FP&A there’s going to be overlap. There isn’t a perfect way to structure it. Every company’s going to do it a little different.
Nick Brignola:
Yeah, that’s correct.
Paul Barnhurst:
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So, you know, I know you’re at Cloud Med right now and they were recently acquired. And I also, I know you guys also went through a number of acquisitions as you were growing there. So maybe can you talk a little bit about, you know, involvement from FP&A in that perspective of being, being acquired, kind of how, you know, what role FP&A plays
Nick Brignola:
Yeah. A big role.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. I can tell by your, the way your eyes moved there, you’re like a lot of work.
Nick Brignola:
Yeah. In an acquisition especially. And I’ve been through a number of them in my career now, FP&A provides, you know, when it comes down to it, there’s a lot of information that’s provided by FP&A during an acquisition. And I’ll just give you some examples of information, but also of timing because the timing is also important in terms of how quick you’re able to turn around the information request that you’re receiving from, you know, a, a potential acquirer. and I think it’s important before I even get into, you know, acquisition and working through, from an FP&A standpoint, it’s important that an organization has a lot of reporting that is one accurate and has integrity from a data standpoint. And a lot of stuff you can just pull right off the shelf.
So ‘ll be honest, I, I don’t remember how many different, requests we received during the diligence timeframe, but it probably went on for about three months. And there was an initial set of information requested. Of course, a lot of the information, as blinded, especially around customers, that type of information. But, you know, revenue by customer and, and P&Ls and information around headcount and, and salary information, which also is blinded, right? A lot of that information was for us just off the shelf information. It wasn’t off the shelf two years ago when I joined the company. Okay. And so, we spent a lot of time over probably a 12-to-18-month period building out a lot of really good reporting that had insights into it that helped us drive the business here.
That helped us get to that point. But ultimately, you know, during, uh, an acquisition, you’re providing a lot of information. And then when I say information, you’re also providing variance explanations and maybe variance at a customer level that you’re needing to explain why did one customer, you know, why did the revenue go up or down year over year for your customer, individualize customers? And you may have hundreds or thousands of customers. And then, you know, when I talk about timing, I, I don’t recall there being any time from any information request. And it’s not like they’re requesting one thing. They may be requesting 30 or 40 things at one time that we did not take longer than 24 hours to respond and provide back into a data room. So, it was critical for us also that we responded very, very quickly to those requests.
And then, you know I had, I don’t remember how many different meetings to walk the third parties through the information, answer questions. I was working Christmas Eve. We worked some on New Year’s Eve through this. So, it was a long three months to say the least during that time there only a couple of us, myself and one other individual in FP&A that knew about the deal. That’s it. Yep. So, everything fell upon our shoulders. I couldn’t mention anything to my team because we were under NDA. So, you know, what we had to keep, you know, was basically do our day jobs and then at night do that job. So, the hours were long, but ultimately it got us to, you know, got us through the, the position that we’re in today, which is a closed transaction and, um, you know, two companies coming together, uh, that, you know, will enable the companies to grow. That’s it.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, that’s great. And as I listened to your answer there, I think the thing that stuck out to me is the importance of making sure you understand and you have access to your data, that you have clean data, that you’re able to present it and be able to explain those variances. Because if you’re going through a transaction, our acquisition and your data’s a total mess, I would imagine it’s probably a nightmare.
Nick Brignola:
Yeah. And let’s, let me tell you some of the comments that we received from, you know, the, the, the third parties were that, you know, we, we had very good data and we had, you know, we were very, we were able to turn things around very quickly. And for them that was very important as they were, you know, there was so much information that they were trying to go through. It’s not just financial information, it’s legal information, contract rights, all kinds of information that they were receiving. And from a financial standpoint, for us to be able to provide that information quickly, it enabled them to, you know, to be able to, to start to analyze and, and have their third party analyze the information and come back with questions. It just makes it much, a much easier and fluid process.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, for sure. I’ve been, on the end with my last company, I helped with building the model for a couple acquisitions and they were very small companies and there were a lot of data challenges, and it was tough. Sometimes everything was still on a cash basis, and you’re trying to normalize it and figure it all out. .
Yes, maybe a lot of work when it’s not clean data to try to make sense that you’re comfortable with what you’re being given.
Nick Brignola:
That’s correct.
Paul Barnhurst:
So, so I know you’ve worked both, you know, at a corporate and a business unit perspective, kind of that commercial through your FP&A career. Maybe talk a little bit of what you’ve seen in the differences in the roles and any advice you’d offer to people in their career if they’re trying to decide, you know, should I focus corporate, Should I focus business unit? Should I do both? Maybe just a little around that.
Nick Brignola:
Yeah, so I, I’ll start with the corporate piece, which is from an experience standpoint, probably less than on the operation side, uh, from an FP&A standpoint, but from a corporate perspective, I mean, those roles are really for individuals that, you know, really like more of the consolidation the know, running processes around budgeting and forecasting, seeing the overall organization and what the numbers look like, and, and helping to, you know, work with the finance. You know, your, your partners really there are the other finance or FP&A teams that you are effectively supporting, right? They’re, your business partners in essence. So, you’re working with other finance teams and saying, look, you know, we may be behind or ahead or what have you, you know, can you guys drive more? Or what are the risks and opportunities around that?
And, and running the, you know, a monthly process around results and consolidations, and putting together processes that help make those things more efficient for the organization. It’s more of a top side view of you know, the business as a whole on the operational FP&A or, it depends on where you’re sitting, right? I’ve supported commercial, I’ve supported manufacturing my career. I’ve supported research and development in my career, almost anything from a business operation standpoint. I’ve supported in my career from an FP&A perspective. And honestly, that’s the piece that I love more, which is really getting into the operation and working with the operation to help them achieve their goals and objectives. And, you know, helping them see around the corners in terms of blind spots that they may not, you know, see and helping provide them you know, drive, uh, helping to drive the business.
To me, that’s, I mean, if, if you really enjoy operations or working with operations, because look, at the end of the day, FP&A’s value doesn’t come from, you know, putting together variances. FP&A’s value comes from really understanding the business and partnering with the business. And to me, that’s where I really look to, to try to excel on a day-to-day basis with our business. And look, right now, I’m in a new role. I’m still feeling, I’m still not, not knowing everything. I’m only three weeks into a new role here. But what I will say is that, look, I, I’m going to be working with operations on, for, for our legacy company as well as a new company, and it’s important to really understand your business. And when I say understand, I mean, you should know that business and you’re not going to know everything.
You should know 80% of what that business does really. Right. You’re not going to know that, you know, that you gotta push this key or do that thing, right? I mean, those are tactical type things Yeah. But really the strategy and what they’re trying to accomplish on a daily basis, and if that type of, those types of things interest you, then look, the operational side of FP&A really, you know, really is an area that you should, you should think about going into. And when I say the operations, I mean, look, I think that my experience in manufacturing finance really helps me to this day. And when I say that I, it’s because manufacturing’s a little different than any other area. You start talking about manufacturing, talking about yields, Okay. Yields from machines, what’s the yield? How many, you know, you put a hundred pieces in and how many do you get out?
You get out 99 or you get out 90 now you don’t wanna get out 90. Sure. Because then there’s a lot of lost product from that standpoint and loss of yield. And I talk about that stuff today with people in terms of what are, what’s our capacity, right? What’s a person’s capacity? Can, you know, I don’t think about eight hours in a day. I think about 80%, you know, productivity out of an individual. So, you know, when I first got here to Cloud Med one of the first questions, I asked was you know, you guys have a standard around, you know, when you wanna add a head what that really means? Nobody can answer the question. And I said, well, look, then we’re going to establish a standard. And that standard for me is 1600 hours, right? Effectively, it’s almost 80% of somebody’s time in a full year.
But people have meetings, people take PTO, people take lunch, people do whatever, right? So, you got 1600 hours a year. So, when you come to me, I’m always going to ask you the question, what is that person going to do for hours a year? I hope you have an answer. At this point, our operators already understand in any organization I’ve worked in that that’s the first question again. And it better be, you know, these are all the things, This is why, Right? It’s not just, you know, because people will always come with a number. I need 12 heads, I need five heads, I need whatever. And the question I always ask is, well, how do you know it’s five? Okay. Because that’s 8,000 hours. So how are you getting there? Okay. And I’m more than willing to approve, if I can see how we’re going to get there.
Yep. Okay. Because FP&A in my opinion, Paul, is not just a controlling type of org. Okay? Yes, we have that responsibility, but we should also be an advocate for our businesses. Okay. When maybe they can’t get there themselves. Okay? We need to make sure that they understand how they can ultimately build a business case to get us there too. Okay. Because our job, especially supporting operations, is to ensure that the operations are, are properly resourced. To enable them to get to the number that they need to get to and advocate sometimes for them also, rather than just being the gatekeeper. And I think that that’s where successful FP&A relationships live is you have to be able to, to walk the balance, to walk the tight rope and have that balance and that makes you, that will make you more successful.
Because honestly, in my career, I have had the opportunity and been fortunate enough that my operations folks went to bat for me more than actually the FP&A individuals that I reported up through. And so, when there were layoffs and rifts, those types of things, more than once in my career, my operators went to bat and said, look, we cannot afford to lose this guy. right? Like, youth may think so, right? But this guy knows my business better than guys that work in the business and there’s a value because he also understands all the numbers and the decisions that we make and how that, you know, how that impacts us. And I think that’s important.
Paul Barnhurst:
You know, there’s a, there’s a lot to unpack there. I really appreciate the answer. And going through the first part, you know, I think you summed it up well, corporate consolidation processes, working with the rest of finance reporting, you know, when you get into the business unit, it’s really about understanding operations, understanding commercial, you know, you’re getting into strategy and really business relationships with the people in the business. Yeah. So, I think, you know, it’s a good way for people to look at it, you know, what do you enjoy doing? Where do you wanna do? And also, some of it depends on where you wanna be ultimately? Sometimes a corporate role can help with that. Yeah. Progression. But I think there’s a lot there. And I liked the second part of, you know, really being a good partner with the business, knowing the business, understanding it.
I remember you talking about capacity, and it reminded me of actually a meeting with you where we were looking at sales capacity. Like, Well, what’s your number? What’s your seasonality? What’s this? I remember I could picture you asking me all those questions as you were talking through it. Because I remember that discussion on one of our, uh, businesses. Yeah. So, I, I definitely know that’s something that you, you know, push on. And I think it’s really important. One other thing I wanna highlight from what you said, there’s being an advocate . I can’t stress that enough. Sometimes finance has the reputation of just the no guy. Yeah. And if that’s all we’re going to be, nobody’s going to wanna work with you. That’s right. You have to be willing, like if they need, if they need 8,000 and they can support it, you need to go to bat for them. And I know I’ve, I’ve had to do that more than once, but I’ve had a, you know, there’s also times I’ve had to tell the business, look, I can’t support this. Right? You don’t have the documentation to support it. These hires here, I can support. These three, I can’t. Come back to me when you know, you have the capacity numbers that can support it, and I’ll be happy to raise it forward as a potential hire.
Nick Brignola:
That’s right.
Paul Barnhurst:
So
Nick Brignola:
Agree a hundred percent on that.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. So, you know, we’re coming up here kind of toward the end of our time, but just a couple more questions for you. One, maybe can you talk a little bit about how your finance team is structured, FP&A you know, do you have analytics under you? Do you do sales commissions? Just talking a little bit about kind of, you know, the scope. I mean, obviously I know budgeting and forecasting is there.
Nick Brignola:
But yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, in the Cloud Med organization, we were really, we had all. I had corporate as well. We just weren’t big enough to separate the team. So, we had corporate as well as operational finance support, but we also developed a lot of analytics within my team, which ultimately has, then there’s been a spin out of an analytics team that was developed internally as well. That team doesn’t report in through me. But we were really the first ones to help start driving, analytics for the company as it related to operational type stuff, which effectively, how we’re building out our, our revenue models. So, we didn’t have any revenue models when I joined. We had, uh, I think one.
And then we then I then harken back to another company that I worked with at Caris when I actually had the opportunity for about two and a half years to run rev cycle. Okay. And effectively that’s what Cloud Med is, is a revenue cycle leakage company. And I thought about or how are we going to get our hands around revenue here? And I worked with one of, one of the, the guys on my team, and now everybody knows how to do it about building out a model. And, and that model has, you know, we’re, we’re within, again, plus or minus to one half percent of our numbers from a revenue perspective. But bringing that to the operators and so our team is really, I don’t have anything of a team, in, in the legacy Cloud Med business, there’s only five or six people they support the operations.
But also do, you know, they, they do a lot of analytics work as well, around, uh, the business and, and, and meet with their business partners on a weekly basis to go through that data and, and really help them, you know, manage their business. Because a lot of the companies that were, that were part of this organization or that were acquired were smaller, talking about $10 to $20 million companies which didn’t really have FP&A, didn’t have modeling. And, we’ve had to bring them into our processes and, and they’ve been very appreciative of that. But it’s, it’s really more around, you know the teams are, you know, day to day working with their business partners. But separated by business effectively, or maybe they support multiple businesses, just depending, and also, you know, a piece that is doing consolidations and reporting for the entire org.
Paul Barnhurst:
Got it. No, that makes a lot of sense. And one thing there that I think has been a broad discussion lately is analytics, right? You had that FP&A; you broke it out. There’s a lot of questions. Should that belong in finance, should it be, its long its own organization because finance has to have access to so much of the data. So, I appreciate you kind of talking about that and how you’ve worked closely with it. Because I think that’s a critical thing nowadays, the analytics and the data.
Nick Brignola:
Yeah, and look, I mean, we, we are joined at the hip. So, by the way, in, in our company that the guy who is running the analytics team at this point is, used to report into me. Yep. Okay. And, uh, and now he’s his own separate thing. He’s really operational analytics, but Sure. Look, it’s important for finance to understand what is going on there and, and we’re brought into all the conversations. We are in the meetings, so we know what’s going on and we’re sharing data too, right? I mean, our original models like, they’ve taken those models and they’re building out their own, which is great operations need their needs, their own, but also digging into other analytics and, and using AI and those types of things to help drive, you know, better, you know, better forecasting, which is great for everybody. So, I think, yeah, analytics and data are really key ingredients of FP&A Today. Not to say that they weren’t before, but really being able to, to, to, to deal with a lot of data Okay. And being able to manage through that is important skill set today.
Paul Barnhurst:
Now, I completely agree with you. It really is important. So now we’re going to go a little bit kind of a personal here question. We like to ask everybody. So, this is when we do on all our shows. What is something not many people know about you? Something they wouldn’t find online?
Nick Brignola:
That’s a good question. I don’t know. I lived overseas for a couple years. You probably can’t find that online and really enjoyed that. My oldest was born overseas, and you know, just an area that, uh, I was fortunate enough to live in Italy for about two and a half years and, really enjoyed my time there and ultimately you know, can’t talk, uh, about the country enough and the experiences that I had there that have helped, you know, mold me into who I am today.
Paul Barnhurst:
Great. No, that sounds like that was a wonderful experience. And actually, I don’t think I remember hearing that, that you’d lived overseas. You might have mentioned it before, but I think I didn’t know that either, so that’s great. Next one that we like to ask everybody, what is your favorite Excel function?
Nick Brignola:
So, look, Paul, I’m old enough to remember Lotus 1, 2, 3. But in Excel and I do some work in Excel nowadays, but probably for me, I, and I haven’t graduated yet to, uh, like X lookup, but I use V lookup a lot and, uh, and you know, just some basic ones, like some ifs. Um, but probably V Lookup to me is very powerful. Uh, my guys on my team have tried to teach me X lookup and I haven’t gotten there yet. Um, but, uh, I can at least do the V and H Look Up.
Paul Barnhurst:
Stuff. Well, I offer an Excel training course that has X lookup. So, if you’re interested, Nick, you know, we, we can talk offline. Yeah.
Nick Brignola:
I may need to; I may need to take that. But you know, I mean the guys today that are in their twenties and thirties are, I mean, amazing Excel skills and even in their forties. I mean, I just, I didn’t have email in college in undergrad, so it just tells you how old I am.
Paul Barnhurst:
I, in high school, I used, I think it was Lotus 1, 2, 3, a little bit of Quatro Pro, so I can relate. Yeah. Yes, you, I’m, I’m getting up there myself. So, I understand what you’re talking about. All right. So last question here and then we’ll let you go. If you could offer one piece of advice to someone starting out in FP&A a today, they wanted to be an FP&A professional, they’re just starting their career, what advice would you offer them?
Nick Brignola:
So, this is what I would say. Listen a lot. Okay. Listening enables you to really learn. And I think that, you know, honestly, was fortunate enough to be an auditor, which required me to listen a lot, to really understand the process and, and really help, help me learn the business. I would say, if you wanna, if you wanna be in FP&A, one, you know, in a lot of organizations, still systems are poor. Ok. Processes are not great in a lot of organizations still to this day. And if you wanna be in a role that adds value to the company, and you can really see an impact being made, FP&A is a great place to be If you’re not afraid of numbers, right? You have to be very comfortable with numbers. But you can build a phenomenal career in FP&A and, and if you’re fortunate enough, depending on what track you want to take in your career, if you want to go down the, you know, if you want to be in finance and, and be in FP&A really is, as Paul you said earlier, it’s almost like an internal consultant.
And I think that for those that really enjoy that type of work, this is a great place to be. And honestly, I don’t really feel like I work. I mean, I work hard, but every day I, I don’t really feel at this point in my career that I work anymore because like I’ve been around long enough that what I do, I enjoy every day. And if you are fortunate enough to listen a lot and learn a lot in your role, you can be very valuable to an organization very quickly. And the skill sets that FP&A bring, which are really around analysis and partnership, honestly, will, you know, they’ll help you in other areas of your life too. Especially the partnership piece.
Paul Barnhurst:
A lot of a great advice there. And I love, you know, the first piece there, just listen. Yeah. So critical to in, in, in the world today. Not just in the profession, but just in general. Listen to people, hear their side, hear what they’re trying to explain, and just stop. Don’t think about what you’re going to respond with. Don’t think about, Well, here’s my position. Just give them that opportunity to share what you need to know. Really, really valuable advice and it will definitely help you move up. So, I’ve really enjoyed our conversation today, Nick, and having you on the show. Thanks so much for being with us and you’ll look forward to chatting with you again. And I’m excited for our audience to get the opportunity to listen to you.
Nick Brignola:
I appreciate it, Paul. Thank you very much. You have a great day.
Paul Barnhurst:
You too.