Ep. 143: Michael Schmit - What’s the Company ‘Why’ – Value Creation thru Transformation

Michael L. Schmit, CPA, is the Corporate Controller and Chief
Accounting Officer of the Schweitzer-Mauduit International Inc.
(SWM), a publicly traded, multinational diversified producer of
highly engineered solutions and advanced materials for a variety
of industries, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia (NYSE: SWM).
SWM has been experiencing rapid growth over the last few years
and their accounting team has been going through a business
transformation, which Michael has been the leader of. This
transformation includes implementation of robotic process
automation (RPA), improved operational analytics, and several
process improvements to meet the needs of the growing business.
Michael's career spans over 25 years where he has held leadership
roles in financial reporting, operations and management
accounting, finance, internal and external audit, as well as
shared services. And, in this episode, he shares what has gone in
to his current business transformation project, how it compares
to previous transformations, and how technology and the future of
work play a role. His main takeaway? Businesses must understand
their "why" and the specific goals they hope to achieve through
transformation. Download and listen to the whole episode now!


Contact Michael Schmit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-schmit-8350545/


Michael's Profile Magazine Article:
https://profilemagazine.com/2020/michael-schmit-swm-international/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)
 Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam
Larson. And this is episode 143 of our series. Today's
conversation features Michael Schmit, the corporate controller
and chief accounting officer of SWM. The accounting team at SWM
has been going through a business transformation, including the
implementation of RPA, improved operational analytics and several
process improvements to meet the needs of the growing business.
And Michael has been the leader of these efforts. In this
episode, he discusses the importance of identifying the company's
why when considering a transformation and the role of technology
in the process, keep listening as we head over to hear more
now. 
 
 Mitch: (00:51)
 So business transformation is not really new when it comes
to accounting and finance, but the systems, the processes, the
things that are being transformed have certainly evolved. So what
has accounting transformation looked like at SWM and how does
that compare to previous transformation projects or other things
you've seen evolve in your experiences? 
 
 Michael: (01:11)
 Yeah, I think that accounting and finance really isn't new,
but I think the why we're doing this and the, how we'll achieve
this, really has been continuing to evolve, to ensure that we're
meeting customer's needs. For instance, the SWM, our accounting
business transformation is really following our overall company's
business transformation. SWM's has been growing at an accelerated
pace, both organically and through acquisition in the last year
and a half or the last, I guess two and a half years since I've
been here, we've actually grown from about a billion in revenue
and 22 production facilities in eight countries to now 1.5
billion in revenue with 36 production facilities in 11 countries.
And now we operate in over 90 countries. So we've been really
focused on integrating our acquisitions while transforming our
own accounting processes, leveraging best practices from
companies we've acquired as well as adding new technologies along
the way. So our why wasn't to, just, you know, cut costs. It was
to obtain synergies from the business, but also improve on kind
of our status quo and, add more value from our roles as
accountants. The vision for the accounting organization here is
to operate as one team and one company to support our company's
vision, their knowledge sharing and process improvements and
leveraging technologies to execute world-class business
partnering and fiduciary excellence. And so all those things are
kind of leading the transformation and, you know, we see the
fiduciary excellence piece as the absolute minimum expectation.
Yeah. That includes complying with all laws and regulations, and
to do that as efficiently as possible, but then also business
partnering, which is partnering with companies' leadership and
management, each other on our teams, and also other groups to
provide actionable, insightful reporting to assist in
decision-making to achieve the company's vision. So in other
words, taking the rear view kind of near view of driving down the
road and focus more on what's coming on the windshield and in the
future of the road ahead. So this is different than past
transformations, I was involved with in other companies, cause I
think the why was really always focused on how do we lower costs
and the, how was we're going to offshore it to a lower cost place
like the Philippines or India. You know, sometimes robotics were
in there as well, but really that's the main difference I
see. 
 
 Mitch: (03:47)
 We'll get back to the specific, why at SWM and some of the
goals and, you know, progress that you've seen in just a minute,
we'll go to that. But I first want to, you know, take a step
back. You mentioned business partnering another term that's, you
know, again, not new, but it's definitely more prominent, I think
these days when it comes to accounting and finance. This whole
conversation has a lot to do with the future of work. And that's
another hot topic, a phrase that is getting thrown around a lot.
So before we really dive into what all of this means and the
connection between the future of work transformation, business
partnering, I'm curious what you think about the future of work.
How do you define it? What are some of the main considerations
are really, you know, why listeners should be aware of what's
going on when people talk about the future of work? 
 
 Michael: (04:33)
 Yeah, to me, the future of work really boils down to value
creation. In other words, how can we as accounting professionals
add more value beyond what we have done historically and what can
now frankly, be done at lower rates in other countries, or be
replaced by technology? You know, we're evolving from the history
of being just scorekeepers to being trusted business partners.
And that is someone that's going to provide those insights to
help drive decisions of the business. And, you know, the rate of
change now is greater than it's ever been in most industries and
it's going to continue to increase. So as accountants, we have to
be better prepared to change and help our businesses succeed in
this. So we need to be able to evolve ourselves and improve at
least at the speed of our business. And why should your listeners
be, you know, interested in that, frankly, so they don't get left
behind. I mean, I literally, you know, having their roles
outsourced overseas or replaced by technology accountants today
really must focus on continuing to develop their own business
skills and be able to articulate the value they're bringing to
the business above, you know, debits and credits and internal
controls. That's just not good enough anymore and won't be in the
future. 
 
 Mitch: (05:56)
 So that's a great point. And we have a lot of conversations
about this and the need for upskilling, reskilling, and
technology is a big part of that. And we'll get to technology
coming up next, but to connect the dots in our conversations so
far, the accounting transformation that you talked about, the
specific why at SWM o...