Show notes
Learn more about NetSuite Analytics Warehouse: https://tinyurl.com/2pynh34j Tune in for the next installment of The CFO Agenda series featuring Brian Hogeland, CFO of Packer Fastener, a distributor of fasteners and industrial supplies. Brian and cohost Ian McCue kicks off the podcast episode by discussing Brian's background and what brought him to the CFO role [2:06]. They then delve into the biggest challenges Packer Fastener has faced as it has grown [11:07] and its use of NetSuite [16:09]. They discuss talent and the workforce and how automation is playing a role in the future of finance and accounting [23:40]. Brian and Ian conclude the episode by discussing CFO priorities for 2025, including incorporating AI [30:47]. --------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;04;10 - 00;00;34;10 Unknown Hey, listeners. Welcome to the NetSuite podcast. I'm Megan O'Brien, co-host of the podcast. And today we're continuing our CFO agenda series with Brian Hogland. Brian is the CFO of Packer Fastener, a rapidly growing distributor of nuts, bolts and other industrial supplies. Brian sits down with NetSuite Podcast co-host Ian McCue and walks him through his background and how roles across finance and technology prepared him for the C-suite. 00;00;34;13 - 00;01;01;01 Unknown He then explains how Packer Fastener has grown beyond its roots as a regional distributor, despite supply chain and inflationary challenges, as well as the specific framework its use to drive the business forward. The CFO explains how NetSuite helped the company manage its growing operations, which includes actively sourcing 30,000 items and specifically the value it's gained from NetSuite Analytics Warehouse. 00;01;01;04 - 00;01;32;08 Unknown With new technologies demonstrating potential to reshape the work of the finance team. Brian shares what skills he thinks will remain critical for finance professionals. He also offers perspective on what he looks for when he's hiring and how leaders can attract top finance talent. Brian then sheds light on Packer Fasteners' ambitious plans for 2025. He walks through potential challenges, technology initiatives, and how he's preparing his team to leverage new AI tools. 00;01;32;11 - 00;01;39;29 Unknown Stay tuned, because all of that and more is coming momentarily. 00;01;40;02 - 00;02;06;19 Unknown You're listening to the NetSuite podcast, where we discuss what's happening within NetSuite, why we're doing it, and where we're heading in the future. We'll dive into the details about the software and the people in next week who are behind all the moving parts. We'll also feature customer growth stories discussing the ups and downs of running a company, and how one integrated system can help your business continue to scale. 00;02;06;21 - 00;02;27;16 Unknown So, Brian, let's start with a bit about your background and who you are. Was your plan always kind of to work in finance and hopefully become a CFO one day? It was. I graduated from college in the mid 90s, and the internet was this really cool thing that had just popped at the time. So I was graduating, graduating with a degree in accounting. 00;02;27;19 - 00;02;48;11 Unknown Really had been talking to a lot of CPA firms to come in and join them, but was really intrigued by this whole World Wide Web concept. I went into my library my last semester of college and actually bought tickets for the Grateful Dead. Actually sent in, like a money order back in the day. But, so it was this whole new, exciting environment. 00;02;48;14 - 00;03;11;02 Unknown And, so while I had the, obviously the discipline and the skills to understand finance was really intrigued by this technology part. So a couple of years after I started my career with Arthur Andersen, I moved over into a technology consulting role and really just really had a lot of fun with that, embraced it. And spent probably the next ten years of my career doing technology. 00;03;11;03 - 00;03;32;00 Unknown So it kind of went from being, you know, aspiring to maybe be a be like a CPA partner doing audits and tax work to maybe really hands on technology roles and, probably around 2010, I moved back into like a, typical finance role. So that's where I kind of started to do more of the progression, the typical financial leadership roles. 00;03;32;02 - 00;03;52;08 Unknown And I guess why? Why did you decide to go back into kind of the traditional finance accounting side after being more on the technology side for a while? Yeah. You know, the sort of there's an analytical aspect of all the financials. Right. So, that was intriguing. The company I had worked for at the time had just onboarded a significant, Oracle, actually, ERP solution. 00;03;52;11 - 00;04;09;29 Unknown And they were looking for somebody with a finance and technology background to kind of help stabilize that, then implementation. And it was a chance for me to really get back into the finance world, but still not have to stretch too far. Same company. Obviously, you know, the solution, the technology solution. So the kind of trading hats within the same company. 00;04;09;29 - 00;04;33;13 Unknown And I'd be lying if I said, you know, getting the pager calls at 3:00 in the morning because somebody couldn't log in. I might have had a factor in that switch too. But yeah, I definitely, I liked the stability and the analytical nature of the finance teams. And as you kind of reflect on some of those, those past roles and your progression through your career, were there any particular positions that you feel like really helped you prepare to where you are today? 00;04;33;13 - 00;04;54;00 Unknown Running, running a finance department for a really fast growing company. So I worked for a large transportation company, for 16 years. And as I moved back into that financial role that I mentioned earlier, there's certain stops along the way there that, there was a corporate accounting role focused really on an month and closed process. And, it's a large, large company. 00;04;54;00 - 00;05;19;02 Unknown So you have to really gather a lot of different teams together and make sure that executing on a financial close, there's are very specific tasks that have to happen in certain orders. So kind of that monthly closed discipline and moved from there into an internal audit leader role. So focusing on, you know, the audit and compliance and risk management working with our board of directors at the time. 00;05;19;04 - 00;05;47;29 Unknown We went through an initial public offering during my time with that, and I'd been through several IPOs in the past, but it was really you know, working with bankers and lawyers and, auditors through that process. And then again, a next evolution. That same company was into a more, like a segment controller role where you're focusing a lot on here's how a business financial person looks at, you know, things, who's partnering with some of the, the, or business leaders. 00;05;48;02 - 00;06;09;10 Unknown How are they analyzing a problem? How can I help support that? Giving some insight into, you know, budgeting and, you know, tracking how you're doing against some of the metrics and the goals, doing financial modeling for specific scenarios. Those all were progressively, important, I think, in getting me to the spot where I'm at today. It sounds like you kind of added like more and more strategic targets, right? 00;06;09;10 - 00;06;26;07 Unknown When you're talking about things like IPOs and modeling. So you start to move beyond. Well, first it was accounting. Then you started moving into tech. And then you kind of pair them together and started taking these more strategic type, I guess, roles and responsibilities that that kind of fair to say. Yeah. And some of it was, opportunistic. 00;06;26;07 - 00;06;44;22 Unknown Some of it was intentional. You know, there's a point where you're looking at, for example, as we became a public company, having to manage the Sarbanes-Oxley function as a, as a public company, not something I was super interested in. Anybody that's listening to this that's been through a Sarbanes-Oxley environment knows that it's not exactly the most efficient use of our time. 00;06;44;24 - 00;07;05;06 Unknown And so really trying to move into more of a how can I how can I learn more, how can I help grow a profitable business? That was a very intentional move. Awesome. And moving into your current role at Packer Fastener. First off, can you just share with our listeners what Packer Fastener does? Sure. So, Packer Fastener is one of eight different entities within our umbrella. 00;07;05;08 - 00;07;26;26 Unknown The specific business buys and sells nuts and bolts. Kind of a very simply stated, we, we have a warehouse full of threaded fasteners. And we, sometimes move into safety equipment or paint and, types of, of solutions are we have banding or we will, drop vending machines at our customers and fill those vending machines. 00;07;26;26 - 00;07;54;03 Unknown We have vendor manage inventory, customer manage inventory, some consignment. But it's really out there, trying to support electrical contractors, HVAC contractors, manufacturers, a lot of construction. So as we've seen, a lot of increase in construction spend, in particular the last couple of years, we've been able to, help our customers grow in that space as well. So it's really focused on, again, sort of low tech nuts and bolts and, you know, really growing environment. 00;07;54;06 - 00;08;16;04 Unknown And Packer Fastener has been around since 1998. So you guys have, you know, pretty fairly lengthy history at this point. But the business, it sounds like, is really focused on expanding in the past decade. Could you just talk a little bit about how the company has grown and how it's evolved and in more recent years? Sure. You know, long before I started with the company, there was a real focus around 2014, a very strategic focus. 00;08;16;04 - 00;08;42;18 Unknown Instead of kind of being a, you know, sort of a small Green Bay, maybe northeast Wisconsin distributor really focused on how can we grow. Our CEO really came with a lot of perspective on trying to provide opportunities for those around him, really focusing on how can we intentionally set bags and what's our big hairy audacious goals? How can we let's sit down and define who we are, you know, what are the markets we intend to serve? 00;08;42;21 - 00;09;01;18 Unknown We have this concept of flywheel where it's, you know, how can we take different parts of our business day in and day out and feed the rest of it and essentially get this kind of like a flywheel concept? Take that and keep it growing and spinning and making the business faster and better. So it was a very intentional focus around that time in 2014 and over the years. 00;09;01;24 - 00;09;22;29 Unknown I joined the company in 2021. So focusing on growing the business significantly. So it's a pretty, pretty lofty goals each year and revenue and volume growth. We meet with a strategic coach four times a year. He helps us get realigned on our we call them rock sets. We kind of subscribe to the whole traction iOS, enterprise operating system model. 00;09;23;01 - 00;09;49;11 Unknown So we focus on our rocks. Each quarter we set new rocks, we check in. How are we doing on those rocks? And all of that really feels that's this, this strategic growth. So there's be hangs that you said, you know, years ago sort of just happened. You know, it isn't really a surprise when you set through your goals and look back and say, gosh, we ticked off, you know, 95% of those three year goals that we said, so it's a really intentional, disciplined focus that's I think has really helped our organization grow. 00;09;49;13 - 00;10;05;08 Unknown And what does that look like for the business? Like you said, Packer fasteners just kind of one arm, maybe the biggest arm, but it's one arm of the business. So what does that how is, you know, how does big goals, and that kind of strategic thinking manifested in terms of what the business is now versus what it was five, ten years ago? 00;10;05;10 - 00;10;23;08 Unknown Yeah, I would say it's when you put yourself in a position where you're setting goals to grow and then holding yourself accountable and your intention, people on that growth, people start to think differently about it, right? So you wake up and, you know, every day you come to work and maybe you're focused on, I have this goal and everything gets reset at zero on January 1st. 00;10;23;08 - 00;10;43;24 Unknown And so how am I going to grow and meet that, that annual goal? How am I going to meet these monthly goals and breaking those really big goals down into smaller, more manageable pieces for each department? So this whole traction iOS model has this, this notion of setting strategic goals up here, but then you sort of cascade down to the different teams, ultimately all of them supporting that larger goal. 00;10;43;27 - 00;11;01;22 Unknown And that's really it's taken time. But it was very methodical rollout. Now all the different departments we have our weekly all times we call them and people that are familiar with this model, they get the all time concept group. So we have weekly all ten meetings where you focus on, hey, what are my rocks for the quarter? What are the company rocks? 00;11;01;22 - 00;11;22;27 Unknown How am I supporting all of that? It's, very intentional, very, very methodical. I like that, yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. What have been some of the biggest challenges for, for the business as you've grown quickly and expanded and, and kind of thought differently about what the business could be? Certainly people. People as our biggest challenge, we believe strongly I mentioned the flywheel earlier. 00;11;22;29 - 00;11;47;19 Unknown That starts and ends with people. So we want to hire we want to retain a really good people. We have a very strong culture, really focused on 12 different specific, pieces that we call swagger. And we want people that are really subscribe to that, that buy into that. And so finding people out there that match that, that's that swagger and then finding enough of them to continue growing the business. 00;11;47;19 - 00;12;07;23 Unknown Right. So all of our growth is geographic growth. It's on landing new customers. It's supporting more vendor manage inventories. A lot of that requires people to do that. And so really finding the right people that match our skill sets, our culture is probably one of the biggest challenges. And then the flip side of that is we have really good retention. 00;12;07;23 - 00;12;26;00 Unknown So we have a, kind of a running joke here that it's harder to get into our company than it is to get into Harvard. Number of job postings that we have, where the applications we have for a particular job posting, there's fewer people that are accepted or hired when you compare it to Harvard's acceptance rate. So we take a lot of pride in that. 00;12;26;00 - 00;12;46;09 Unknown We have a lot of really good people, and we really try to nurture that. But in order to keep the company growing, we have to keep feeding that funnel, right? So that's a significant challenge for us. A lot of the other challenges we've had, supply chain issues that were really prevalent during Covid and all the inflation that came with, those are pretty significant items we had to navigate through. 00;12;46;12 - 00;13;04;12 Unknown And even just on the horizon year was a lot of talk about tariffs and, you know, sort of globalization. We're, you know, anticipatin…
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