Ep. 15: Kaiser Mock - Cross-functional Relationships with Non-Finance Individuals

Contact Kaiser Mock:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaiser-mock/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


Music: (00:00)


Adam Larson: (00:05) Welcome back to "Count Me
In". Thanks for joining us at IMA as we bring you the latest
perspectives and learnings on all things affecting the accounting
and finance world. This is Adam Larson and with me as always is
my co-host Mitch Roshong. Today's episode we will get into an
area of accounting, not often discussed - the importance of
relationships with non-financial individuals. Our guest for
today's conversation came to us from the MillerCoors Brewery in
Golden, Colorado. And with that I'd like to ask our listeners to
send us a note letting us know where you're listening from. We'd
be happy to share some of the unique locations and let everyone
know what kind of global reach "Count Me In" and IMA has. But now
back to today's episode. Mitch, how was it speaking with Kaiser
Mock?


Mitch Roshong: (00:50) Our conversation was
great. Kaiser is a Financial Analyst for Brewery Operations at
MillerCoors. He monitors the brewing process and provides
assistance with costing, variances and overall manufacturing
processes. He is also a former IMA Young Professional Leadership
Experience winner and remains very active with IMA as he strives
to share his experiences and talks about the opportunities within
accounting. The underlying theme for today's episode is the
importance of relationship building for accountants. Automation
has happened before and will continue to change their roles as
new technologies emerge. But accountants of the future must be
able to communicate effectively and work with individuals across
all functions to add value to their organizations. Kaiser shared
how he's worked alongside and built relationships with
non-finance individuals to help drive efficiencies. And I think
our listeners will be able to learn a lot from this episode. So
let's listen in.


Music: (01:43)


Mitch Roshong: (01:48) So, tell me. What are the
trends you've seen with accounting and automation? I know we tend
to think about trends being these big dramatic changes but are we
seeing changes right now that maybe are impacting business and
accounting you know, slowly and steadily and a big future
implication?


Kaiser Mock: (02:09) Yeah, you know, Mitch. I
think it's such an interesting topic with this because there's a
lot of concern and a lot of hype out there right now about where
accounting is going and what role accounting is going to play in
the future. But I think if you look at what the profession has
done over the past 10, 15, you know, you go back 50 years,
accounting today is dramatically different than it was then. And
you look at the horizon in technology and what, you know, even
computers and automated reports have done for us. Automation is
not something that's new to the field. It has been happening for
a very long time now. And I think that what you see today is
there might be an increase in the speed of the change, but the
change is all the same. And I think what the biggest topic that I
think when people are concerned about where accounting is going I
think what people really should be asking themselves is, you
know, what, what am I doing today to add value and are the
changes that are coming and whether it be automation or you know,
other changes to the accounting field. Are they replacing the
role that I do or, or, or are they going to emphasize the impact
that I'm having on my business? Because if it's simply replacing
the role and replacing the responsibilities, that one has an
accompany. I think that begs a better question about whether or
not one is utilizing their skills and utilizing the abilities
that they have for the business. And if it's more of how is it
going to change my role within the company, I think that's a
better question for us to say. How can we eliminate non value
added tasks? How can we eliminate inefficiencies within our own
jobs to increase what we are doing and the information we are
providing overall to, to our companies, to the business world, to
whoever our ultimate state quarter's stake holders are that we,
that we support.



Mitch Roshong: (04:12) And how about the overall
scope of the profession? How are these impacts, you know, not
just changing the role of the accountant and the way the finance
function operates, but what kind of changes do you see the
finance professionals realizing with the relationships with
non-finance functions across the organization?



Kaiser Mock: (04:36) Yeah. You know, I think
it's funny because a lot of times, at least for myself, and I'm
sure a lot of the listeners can relate to this, when you tell
people that you work in finance, or you work in accounting or
whatever it may be, you'll typically get a response for
individuals outside of the profession that say, Oh, I couldn't, I
couldn't ever do that. I'm not good with numbers. I'm not good
with math. And to me that completely misses the point of what we
do or what we should be doing. Because, you know, we get the
stereotype of number crunchers, whatever that may be. But really
what we're doing is we are storytellers and we are individuals
that analyze information and convey that to our stakeholders,
whether it's within the finance industry or outside of it, at our
businesses that help them better understand what is going on and
help them make better strategic decisions. So what I look at, the
changes in the industry are ones that if we are truly, truly
doing what our roles are and truly you know, as I said earlier,
maximizing what our potential is. And what our skill set is, all
that that does is it creates a better relationship with
individuals that might not be accounting or finance per se,
because it allows us to spend more time on the analytical, allows
us to understand better about what is going on within, within
our, our roles so that that information can be more useful to, to
the outside world. You know, as an example, even here at my
business, I work at MillerCoors here in Golden, Colorado. When
I'm able to eliminate the need to run reports manually or to
manipulate reports, what that does is it allows me to convey
information to individuals here at the brewery about what exactly
is going on in their field and whether it is helping them
understand labor variance reports. So instead of spending hours
computing it myself, I can simply have a report produced for me
that I can then analyze and give them information or maintenance
spend. It's something that allows me to spend more time giving
them useful information instead of just giving them data.



Mitch Roshong: (06:52) Let's talk a little bit
more about that because I'm kind of interested as you're putting
together these variants reports and you have a lot of financial
data but as you said, you're trying to communicate it to people
who may not fully understand. How do you go about really telling
the true story behind the numbers and making sure everyone in the
organization understands exactly what it is that you're trying to
add value to or improve?



Kaiser Mock: (07:15) Yeah, I think one of the
most important things for that process, and at least for myself,
what I've found is it's kind of the idea of instead of taking a
top down approach, taking a more of a bottom up approach. And
what I mean by that is I find myself very frequently caught in
the idea that okay, I have reports or I have information and I
need to, I need to get this information out to other individuals.
And then they are going to follow up with ...