Ep. 88: Karin Baggstrom - How Has COVID-19 Accelerated Business?

Contact Karin Baggstrom:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-baggstr%C3%B6m-9233a72/


STARZPLAY: https://arabia.starzplay.com/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)
 Hey everyone. Welcome back to Count Me In, I'm your host,
Adam Larson, and I'm excited to bring you episode 88 of our
series. Our expert guest for today's conversation is Karen
Baggstrom. Karen is a Founder and CFO of Starz Play, the leading
subscription video on demand service that streams to over 20
countries across Asia, middle East and North Africa. In this
episode, my cohost Rouba talks with Karen about how the COVID-19
pandemic has actually accelerated her business. During their
conversation. Karen uncovers, how stars play as harnessing the
power of technology to optimize the finance function and
leveraging data analytics to enhance future growth. Even despite
the current challenges. Keep listening, how amid digital
disruption, recessions, and pandemics finance and accounting
professionals remain ahead of the curve. 
 
 Rouba: (00:58)
 So good morning, Karen, and thank you so much for joining
us today. 
 
 Karen: (01:03)
 Good morning, Rouba. Thank you for having me.
 
 Rouba: (01:05)
 I'm actually looking forward to hearing from you as Starz
Play has been a really beautiful example of organic growth out of
the middle East region. So kudos to you guys. 
 
 Karen: (01:15)
 Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we're excited as well, even
though the whole of COVID  epidemic is of course, nothing
that we would like to have, or see of course. 
 
 Rouba: (01:28)
 So I want to dive right into it. has, I mean, as somebody
who works in finance and accounting and you're the CFO of Starz
Play, has the digital transformation of finance impacted the
roles and responsibilities of today's CFO and what are the skills
needed to maneuver during such trialing time, like you just
mentioned now, in your opinion. 
 
 Karen: (01:51)
 Sure. I mean, I think in general, moving to digital
environment has changed and impacted many roles in, in businesses
around the world, not just finance also, of course, however, I do
think that in finance, the CFO and the finance department has a
little bit stepped out of just being the accounting and reporting
team from, you know, looking at the actuals, just comparing
things to budget. Moving into this digital environment has
allowed this team to become more part of the business integral
part of the business, I would say, because back in the old days,
the finance department was only always the one that was just
looking at, you know, this is what happened, we'll book it in the
balance sheet and the P/L, and then we compare it to the budget
and then you send off a report. But now I think there's so much
more involvement between the finance team and all the other teams
and going digital of course, is a big part of this, because when
you move into the digital world, you all of a sudden needs two
different systems. And I also think that the finance team has
become more analytical in their way that they work. They, you
need to be able to analyze what comes in and not just take, you
know, the cost as they are, and just look at them and say, okay,
that's it that you're challenging the rest of the business, that
your, you know, questioning the other departments in the business
and saying, yeah, but is that really so, or can we change
anything or why is that so? So I think that the finance team has
become much more analytical in the way that we work and going
digital is a big part of that. I was gonna say, I mean, for us,
at Starz Play, we are a hundred percent digital. I mean, we work
in the digital space. Our product is in the digital space.
Everything is digital. So for us, it's natural and we have a lot
of data around us all the time, you know, all this subscriber
data or anything that touches our service, we have data on it.
So, you know, I think from our point of view, we haven't gone
digital as such. We are always work that's in our DNA. It's how
we started this business. But no, I for sure, I see that my team,
if I compare, you know, when I started in, in finance way, way,
way back when now it's way more analytic, and the finance team is
challenging the rest of the business much more, and that is a big
difference. 
 
 Rouba: (04:47)
 And you mentioned the breaking down of silos and the
interconnectedness of it all with finance teams becoming more
involved in other departments, and I'm sure that includes the
likes of marketing and product development, what have you, and do
you find that the lines between CFO and CIO for example, are also
blurred and then what role does digital transformation play at
Starz Play? I mean, it'd be curious to know how that's working
since you mentioned it's a digital product by default and in your
current business model, especially, you know, within the finance
team spectrum. 
 
 Karen: (05:19)
 Yeah. I mean, for a lot of companies, I do think that you
will see a blurred line between the CFO and the CIO, especially
in companies where you cannot afford to have a big C-suite where
it does not make sense. You might have a CEO and a CFO and that's
it. So you cannot have, you know, add on more C level people. So
I definitely think that, and it makes sense from a certain
perspective to do that. For us at Starz Play, we haven't really
that structure because we're such an, you know, digitalized
company. We have, we have the CFO and the finance team and we
manage everything that has to do with finance and analytics and
so on, and then we have a very big tech team and development
team. And under that tech and development team, we have, data
analysts. We have a big data analyst team, that is also working
on, AI. So that kind of sits for us in our company. It sits under
the tech team, but I'm definitely sure that in other companies,
the blending of the CFO and the CIO does make sense for sure. And
then your second question on how, you know, the digital
transformation, what, how has this impacted us at Starz Play and
add the business model that we have? as I said earlier on we,
because we're a company within the digital space, we haven't
really transformed as such, you know, from something being brick
and mortar to transform, but what is happening is that we are
evolving all the time. So we are, you know, we, we see that we
need new tools to analyze certain type of data. We see that we
want to go more granular into things, into information that we
have, be it, you know, just simple, we get a supplier invoice and
we want to be able to challenge what is that, you know, that data
that is on that invoice and we can go more and more granular. So
I think we didn't go from brick and mortar to become digitalized,
but we are digitalized, but we're becoming more and more
sophisticated.
 
 Rouba: (07:41)
 But I think it's such a model is yours was actually born as
a result of the digital, disruption. You're a disruptor! So
successful leaders around the world, pride themselves on being
lifetime learners and the, and they say that this is the secret
for ongoing success, you know, especially in this era where
there's new ways of doing things every day, what is your view on
the need for continuous upskilling and reskilling, and obviously
wellbeing a lifetime learner, you know, and not just for you for
also your team and how do you apply that as well? 
 
 Karen: (08:24)
 I mean, I can only agree with that statement that, you
know, you need to continue to learn as long as you live. You
can't just say one day, ...