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 TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (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...