CFOs on Impact of Tariffs on Global Business: Navigating Uncertainty

Megan - 00:00:57 Today, I'm blessed to have two incredible guests, Michael Perica and Sameer Katiyar. Michael is a financial executive with proven success as a leader in operations and capital markets. He possesses excellent problem solving, financial modeling, project design and management, customer and shareholder relationships, negotiations, and multifunctional team leadership skills. Michael is an enthusiastic and innovative team leader who consistently meets commitments with integrity. He has extensive experience with shareholder relations and SEC reporting, financial planning and analysis, capital raising, and M&A. Michael currently serves as Chief Financial Officer at Rimini Street. Sameer is a finance executive and strategic business partner in the technology sector with broad expertise and a proven track record of achievement and leadership in FP&A, accounting, cost management, business integration and transformation, treasury, M&A, and investor relations in both public company and private equity environments. Sameer is currently serving as the Chief Financial Officer at Cleo. Michael and Sameer, thank you both for being my guest on today's episode of CFO Weekly.

Sameer - 00:02:08 Thank you, Megan.

Michael - 00:02:10 Thank you for your pleasure to be here.

Megan - 00:02:12 And today, we're going to be talking about tariffs and their impacts on businesses' financial operations. And with unprecedented tariffs currently hanging in the balance, Economists are predicting supply chain disruptions and rising prices. And today, we're blessed to have two CFOs to discuss this very important topic, and we have a lot to cover. So let's jump right in. So Michael and Sameer, as CFOs, you've both navigated through periods of intense financial change. So what's the most unexpected lesson that you've learned in your career that has shaped the way you both approach financial leadership today?

Michael - 00:02:50 Thank you, Megan. From the various cycles that I've experienced, substantial change, expansion, contraction, etcetera, through this role, we focus a lot on people process technology. And the most unexpected surprise through these changing times and cycles is really focusing on the investment in people. Ultimately, the people on top of your process and technology are gonna get you through this and the more you invest, and I learn each and every day to invest more on those people, is how the not only the function, and this expands throughout the entire enterprise in the organization, can help you through these interesting, changing dynamic times.

Sameer - 00:03:32 Michael, I have to echo that. That's my number one answer because people are the key in everything, in any kind of business and in any kind of organization. So I definitely echo that sentiment. But since you've already touched on it, I'll also mention something else a little bit more that perhaps you have seen as well, which is just balancing core fundamental governance on the finance side with being very agile on the FP&A or the forecasting and predicting the business trends side of things. And what I mean from that is what I've observed and seen is you don't want to be inward looking. You want to be making sure that both from a historical trends perspective, you understand how those trends were internal as well as external factors. And then using the same learning and then applying that to how you forecast and provide visibility to your business team. So to me, that balance between not being overly focused on just getting the actual reporting right or just running hard and doing just forecasting and not focusing on the fundamentals. To me, both those, that balance is really important in the business. And that's one thing that besides people, it's been one of the things constantly evolving and learning and trying to do better at that.

Megan - 00:04:49 And, Sameer, just to follow-up on that. So when you're doing your financial planning, how do you plan given all of the changes that we've seen in the recent years? Are you just constantly running scenarios, or do you do a best, worst, and probable? How do you manage all of the unexpected?

Sameer - 00:05:09 Yeah. So that's a good question. There is a point of diminishing return in terms of doing scenarios beyond a certain point. The plan is dead on arrival pretty much most of the time. Right? Dead on arrival, as I mean, is you get it approved and then suddenly something's changed. We just got our plan approved, and now here are the tariffs. So it's a balancing act. You do want to and we do run scenarios from time to time, but what we rely more on is, you know, monthly update on forecasting, incremental updates, not major, and then, you know, going for something that we are trying to get to, which is eighteen months rolling forecast. I know a lot of companies try to do that. Others, probably with bigger teams, have that in place already. But that's something that we are trying to get to here at my company here. But then, generally, that's what I've done in the past.

Megan - 00:05:58 Michael, anything to add?

Michael - 00:06:00 Certainly. And building off Sameer's comments, ultimately, it's flexibility, not within your own function, as he noted, is to have insights with the entire enterprise. We use the term business partner a lot, but it is critical, once again, investing in your people and your people are investing in other functions, other leaders within that function. You can have a dynamic scenario analysis and flexibility and not just and that's still insular. And looking at the overall market, the industry partnering with not only the overall economy, the particular industry from a regional theater perspective and working with your marketing organization so you can provide thoughtful conversations and insights so all of the information as much as feasible can be used to make the right business decision, ultimately, the capital allocation to get your return. And never could that be more prescient than the current times with tariffs.

Megan - 00:06:57 And in your experience, how do tariffs affect the financial stability of companies, maybe specifically in the technology and industrial sectors, but do you see differences across industry?

Michael - 00:07:10 In no uncertain terms, it can be a very and is and was for myself a destabilizing event. In my prior CFO chair, for the round of tariffs with the current administration, the majority of our largest product lines were solely constructed in China. We had a strategy where we would launch a new product family, new product line, you'd look for an optimal manufacturing location relative to the theater of demand, but you wouldn't create a lot of flexibility for other product lines. We did shift manufacturing from China into Mexico and then create multiple lines. I will say those organizations and now we also pass through pricing, and we also were able to embark on exemptions with the US trade representative, and I believe that will be the case again and use many other for sale doctrines to offset. Now, ultimately, those organizations that were impacted in the round, it is relatively new. You will dust off, and you likely continue scenario analysis and a global look and have ability to shift more dynamically and quickly, you are in a better position than others that are embarking on this the time.

Sameer - 00:08:31 Michael, anything? Yeah. The only you know, Michael's been through this much more having been in the supply chain. I have primarily been looking at this from a software perspective as a supplier to industries where Michael would have worked and, of course, in a manufacturing, you know, distribution logistics space. The only thing that I would add is I do believe that more than short term volatility, it's, to me, the long term. If we have and what I mean by that is if there is stability as far as tariffs are concerned, I think companies tend to work around, figure out what to do. If the short term, you know, whipsaw, tariffs on, tariffs off, those kind of things that actually cause, to me, to my mind, the maximum impact and make it really hard for companies and CFOs to actually help their business and their customers provide the value that they're looking for. So the only thing I would say is to the point that Michael mentioned really early on, which is people process tools. People are super important, obviously, but getting the right tools deployed within the business becomes hypercritical to help us manage our supply chains or any other internal processes. So that's the only thing that I would add to what Michael said.

Megan - 00:09:49 And, Michael, how have you seen businesses adjust their financial strategies to manage additional costs associated with tariffs, and are these adjustments sustainable in the long term?

Michael - 00:10:00 So from an adjustment standpoint, I would strongly recommend, and building off Sameer's comments, that what feels quite a bit different this go around is the short term vacillating of policy. That was different versus the go around, and it's very challenging, extremely challenging to make long term capital deployment decisions where there's short term policy fluctuations. Again, flexibility. However, one should have plan a and a plan b, and Sameer noted this as well. Based on different scenarios, one cannot plan for every eventuality. But this is something that I would strongly recommend is in place if one would be impacted on the potential areas, and we know of we hear a lot about Mexico, China, Canada, but also discussions, threats, if you will, in the European Union on potential tariffs and making assessments on yourself, what one can do for market pricing near intermediate, longer term. And in that plan a and plan b, I would strongly suggest go through one more time through your bottoms up planning cycle, understand what's a nice to have and what's gotta have from a project perspective. And here at Rimini Street, we're very strong at assisting folks in having many conversations, particularly on the IT systems, how they can maximize and also be flexible to change their organization.

Megan - 00:11:32 And, Sameer, with your experience in FP&A and M&A, how do tariffs influence the strategic decisions that companies make during acquisitions or cross border mergers?

Sameer - 00:11:43 So as far as financial planning analysis is concerned, of course, as I mentioned earlier, those are part of your scenario planning. Right? You're trying to make sure that you understand, have the right level of visibility as you think about what your underlying business is doing. And then if you're acquiring something, you work through some of those same sort of factors or considerations. I do, again, think about you know, wanna bring back the point that I was making earlier, which is visibility is super important and, also, the predictability if you have it. So companies generally try to look for, at least in my experience, always looking for locations, countries, or areas where there is stability and a little bit of visibility as much as you can have so that you can actually make a decision that will be longer term rather than something that is going to be impacted by short term sources. Now, of course, you can't predict everything, but, generally, companies, investors gravitate towards visibility and predictability. If you have that, then that's where you would focus on and that's where investors go and that's where I would make or would have made investments if the option is there.

Megan - 00:13:00 And from a CFO's perspective, what role does risk management play when managing tariff induced costs, and how do you balance operational efficiency with increased expenses?

Michael - 00:13:12 So, again, stressing the nice to have, the gotta have. And it takes discipline relative to your business priorities to not only pause a project that's in the nice to have category, and there'll be varying opinions on what's strategic, what's critical, etcetera, is to have that discipline and focus with the priority set. And, ultimately, from an operations perspective, at all times, one should be seeking efficiencies and continuous improvement. We say it a lot when there is a storm potentially coming in tariffs, but it takes a greater priority during these times. But it's something they should always be in place, and I'll go back to my previous comment that this should the need to shift if one has global demand and sources globally, which is typical of those that make that produce products these days as a result of globalization. Now we're talking about deglobalizing, but the demand isn't going to shift as quickly as the supply, is to take this into account whenever you are launching a new business. You know, relative to your previous question from an M&A, from an integration standpoint, take this into account to have this flexibility that can give you even if demand changes or if it's a driven supply chains through a tariff policy, you will be so much better off than your competitors. But I do wanna say we haven't touched on it yet that all organizations, and I look deep into this, would prefer to onshore. The best case is to have local sourcing and local production for your local demand. But there are challenges here domestically from an onshoring perspective. And the challenge I ran into, and I certainly and I believe it's even more challenging today than it was during the round of tariffs, was finding reliable, cost effective, unskilled labor here domestically. That is the number one challenge, and it's difficult to see how this issue is going to be solved based on the current policy. So I'm not sure this is going to be the number one choice through the analysis of organizations that are dealing with this challenge.

Sameer - 00:15:32 I think Michael covered it really well. The, you know, the one what I would like to add to that, you know, very valid point. One other factor in all this is looking at it in vacuum is always one of the things that sometimes worries me where, potentially, companies, as well as investors, look at it and then have a reaction to it. There is always countermeasures that come into play, both from a global as well as local perspective. So, for example, you know, tariffs in place, most likely, there will be some offsets by countries to, you know, help their companies that are exporting by giving them some sort of relief in some way, shape, or form. Within The US, there's potentially going to be tax cuts and other things that will happen from a income tax perspective for a company. We don't know whether it's there or not, and that's part of the uncertainty. But the challenge is and what is important is to keep a view that is balanced and keep in mind that there's always a trickle down from various other so we are so connected that we need to keep that into account. So it goes into the point that I think we've been referring to making sure that we've got good visibility all around and we are considering all factors. I'm in a little bit of camp where the tariffs may or may not be as bad as they look on the face of it, and there may be a silver lining to all this. And that's kind of my last half full kind of mentality a little bit. The other part that I would say is and, again, we talked about it. I can't stress enough. Visibility, as far as tools are concerned, is really, really important. Michael mentioned how Rimini Street have same, I would say, similar things for other organizations in the supply chain space, including where I work at Cleo. Same thing. Right? You want to make sure that you are engaging the best tools, best people to help you drive the organization with a high degree of agility, as well as making sure that you're getting all the information that you need for making the right decisions. So I think tools are really important. Just they need to be deployed judiciously. And, again, you can go overboard, but making sure that you make the right choice. So how I would respond to that question, Megan?

Megan - 00:17:52 And I'm just curious if either of you have an opinion on this, but given the global nature of business these days, do you think that these tariffs are gonna have the desired effects, or are people just gonna shift where they're purchasing items from?

Michael - 00:18:08 Ultimately, at the core, I think what's lost in the discussion is tariffs were instituted for protectionist policy. And, ultimately, the preference would be onshoring as I referenced previously. But a protectionist policy will protect local organizations that can have higher prices. That's a component of this, and that's what we saw largely in the go around. However, from the vantage point of inciting, as Sameer noted, our organization, our respective organization, finance organization, that is not only internal looking, external analysis and understanding the industry, where competitors sit, what their pricing movements are, to do analysis as to, well, hold on. Can we drive volumes by not increasing and not passing through and have efficiencies through volumes and embark on a different pricing strategy to have a competitive advantage? There will be instances of this where organizations will have that advantage and can actually prosper and capture share by being a better operator in this environment. And those that are just looking for a new, more cost effective non tariff location to produce product and then ultimately passing through may get left behind here. Though this is disruptive, it can be destabilizing. The better operators can find opportunity and will be able to capture share in these environments. And I think we will see that if this indeed turns into a medium or longer term policy, as the old adage goes, if things change so much on the short term, the more they change, everything stays the same. It's very difficult to be ahead of that, nearly impossible. So this is where, from a desired effect perspective, I think we'll have instances of those taking advantage of this, but it's hard to see near to intermediate term the desired effect of substantial direct capital investment domestically and to provide employment opportunity that would not be inflationary is hard for me to see at this time. It's really difficult.

Sameer - 00:20:30 What Michael said makes perfect sense, and I do fully agree with that. I would only say here that we don't you're up you know, Michael is absolutely right that there is inflationary pressure. My expectation, there will be some monetary policy decisions that will I mean, the job from the Fed is really, really tough here in this environment. Right? They're trying to manage inflation down, and here we are talking about inflation. What do they do? But there are, again, to my point, that there are other things that should come into play as these, tariffs take hold. If they do, we don't know the extent of those tariffs, but there are various factors to consider. So in addition to what these tariffs are causing in terms of instability, you know, based on what we are seeing in terms of what they can cause or are causing, the only way to go about is making sure that we are going back to the basics. And as we've discussed earlier in this discussion, we just need to make sure that we are creating the right level of scenario planning for ourselves. And as we mentioned earlier or Michael said, plan a, plan b, plan c, we just need to have those, and that's the only way to be prepared.

Megan - 00:21:52 And we might have touched on this already, but as global trade dynamics evolve, how do you anticipate that tariffs will continue to impact supply chain decisions and capital investments? What are the long term effects that tariffs have?

Sameer - 00:22:07 This is not new. Right? I mean, we know that tariffs have always been placed. It's just sort of I mean, US had tariffs long back. People attribute the nineteen thirty depression to the tariffs. We had tariffs starting 2016, 2017 time frame. They have stayed in place. In fact, they probably have gone up a little bit. Other countries globally have had tariffs off and on forever. So tariffs are not unknown or not something new. It is just the changes that cause us to be worried at this point in time. So keeping ahead and keeping an eye to the ground globally as well as locally as to where the tariffs are, what the climate is as far as possibility of tariffs and other structural impacts. That is the key here. So, for example, I'll take an example of India. India had a lot of tariffs in place several years back. And then that opened up and more than opening up, you know, people were given confidence or the investors were given confidence that tariffs would not be levied going forward, that there is certainty that this is not going to be those closed economies. And that allowed a lot of investment to come in. That gave people confidence, all investors' confidence. So I think that's the key and people will be looking out for those stable environments to be making their investments. So from a long term investment perspective, it's the same way that you would diligence anything. Then going back to the point we were talking about, it's where you find stability, you tend to gravitate towards that because you have visibility. You know that you can invest there for a longer term.

Michael - 00:23:47 I certainly wanna build off the key points and, that Sameer noted. Throughout history, aggressive long term heavy tariff policy leads to tariff wars, and it's a lowering tide, and it lowers all boats, and it's very difficult for anyone to operate and prosper, and, thus, that's why these long term tariff wars are not in place. Ultimately, the quicker the results in how organizations are able to either manage or are harmed as well as ultimately the consumer is harmed, the more aggressive this policy is, the quicker we're going to get this answer. And I think the answer is going to echo what we've seen in history. Nonetheless, there is a path, as I said previously, where a moderate that doesn't inflame to an entire tariff war, we're gonna see some winners, and we're gonna see some losers. And there is business opportunity here in no uncertain terms, but, ultimately, the essence of this discussion, Ryan, is, to do nothing and just be entirely responsive is a very poor business strategy, and, ultimately, that organization, its shareholders, its employees are going to be left behind.

Megan - 00:25:07 And, Michael, building on that, how have you seen, companies adapt financial frameworks in response to changes in tariffs or trade policy shifts?

Michael - 00:25:17 Well, in no uncertain terms, it is, a finance organization that is successfully managed through a tariff cycle, and most things do run-in cycle, as Sameer has noted with, capturing, historical context, they're better positioned. And the lessons that are learned and they and always through these changes, an organization, creates a new skill set. And if that skill set is continued to invested and driven by the people ultimately, but through that comes process and technology and the deployment, these are competitive advantages. If you continue to harness that, see how it can work, whether there are tariffs, globalization, deglobalization, better managing a supply chain, and your operational metrics in holding yourself to that, the organization to that, you're going to have a competitive advantage. And that's the exciting part of this. And that's where I think the organizations that have this approach really have more of an opportunity here.

Megan - 00:26:19 And, Sameer, with your experience in investor relations, how do businesses communicate tariff related risk to investors and stakeholders?

Sameer - 00:26:28 That is I think the core of investor relations is being as transparent as possible with your investors. All investors prefer and value a clear visibility and ability to understand and the transparency that a management can provide. So, certainly, and you've seen this, there was there's been such a major spike. I think it's three times what it was before, you know, the word tariff was brought up on investor calls by CFOs during their you know, in the last couple of quarters. So, certainly, folks are discussing this, but that's the key here. You have to be transparent. You have to provide them with this is the likely impact or not and you don't have to, of course, say what the exact impact is. There's no way that anyone would know that. But at the same time communicating what the company is doing to actually address this uncertainty and how the company is going to be able to move forward from these changes and continue to become a stronger organization. Again, giving investors that visibility always provides them the confidence which ultimately leads to higher value because there's more clarity into where the organization is ultimately going.

Megan - 00:27:53 And we've touched on this, but how have tariffs influenced the decision making process regarding pricing for businesses that rely heavily on imports? Is the only option to pass the price increase along to the consumer?

Sameer - 00:28:09 It's definitely not the only option, and I don't think that it's a real option that passing on the price increases. There is a combination of increasing efficiency and, again, goes back to the kind of tools that you have. You want to make sure that you're able to disperse or take the concentration out of your supply chain. And for that, you need tools that can help you monitor where you're getting a lot of where you're sourcing more from or less from and where you want to move this supply chain and how do you want to balance that out. So, tools like that are super, super helpful and important and they will help provide the competitive advantage that Michael was referring to earlier, as well as the ability to run the organization in a more efficient manner. So, essentially, while you will have to provide, depending on the pricing, you know, elasticity that you have for your product, you'll be able to price it in a way that you're not just passing on the price to the customer, but also driving some efficiencies which manage this in a way that is less painful all around.

Michael - 00:29:22 Building off of Sameer's comments to the point of passing through pricing, likely one of two things would occur if one embarks on this strategy of not looking, as Sameer noted, for efficiencies, looking for alternatives, in the entire toolkit globally, domestically, etcetera. You're either going to impact the demand for your product or you're going to enable a competitor. It is hard to imagine, and I don't think there will be many instances, that one will pass through pricing and your bottom line on your profit and loss statement will stay the same. Hard to imagine. And that, in my view, would be a failed strategy. Nonetheless, thankfully, we're not hearing a whole lot about a universal tariff concept on all imports because that seems like a great disincentive for anyone to do anything. And then from a to stimulate onshoring, it's hard to see. It wouldn't lead to inflation. So, ultimately, as we've been discussing, as Sameer noted, is you one needs to look for, through your operations, a competitive advantage to offset as great as possible. And I can't stress enough that folks will continue to analyze onshoring, and, hopefully, there are cases where this can work. And some of these other dynamics, potential policies, as Sameer noted, can be a great incentive that's not inflationary, an injection of capital, as Sameer noted, the challenges for the Fed and the pressures to provide the capital, potentially to offset some of these challenges. This is something that folks who are very desirous but not certain that it's going to cancel out.

Megan - 00:31:01 Last question. Given the last few weeks, it looks like we're in for an unpredictable few years. So how are both of you enabling your teams to prosper in this kind of environment?

Michael - 00:31:17 Going back to the very beginning, investing in our people and taking this challenge, as an opportunity, an opportunity for us not only internally. And we're in a wonderful situation here at Rimini Street where, one of, if not the largest end market segment for us is global manufacturing. We have partnerships. We are IT partners with many large global manufacturers, and we are deep. And this is the opportunity for us to assist these organization to, one, be able to respond quickly, have the flexibility with greater economics. And this is something that we espouse internally and that, frankly, as we started earlier, you've been around sitting in this chair long enough, you've been through cycles and challenges that ultimately you realize it creates opportunities. And that, though stressful, they're all challenging. There are greater rewards if one's able to execute and recognize that the challenge in front of us, we're gonna have to address it in one certain terms, and let's look for the opportunity.

Sameer - 00:32:16 Michael said it exactly right. This uncertainty requires organizations, and would the organization that would be best placed would be the ones that are prepared for it. And it's important for organizations to look at all areas where they can minimize any kind of uncertainty and, therefore or be prepared for the uncertainty and be able to have processes, tools, policies, and business strategy that will enable them to weather this as we move forward. So it's, again, going back, I think we're going full circle here. As Michael mentioned, we need to make sure that we continue to invest in our people and in our processes and tools and help our customers do the same. All customers, you know, we are a microcosm of our customers, ultimately, or a reflection of our customers, and each of the customers are trying to do exactly what we are trying to do. And to the extent that, specifically from where I sit, Cleo provides supply chain orchestration for its customers. And as we can imagine, supply chain is so crucial and that is what exactly you're talking about. And, therefore, any flexibility, any visibility that companies can get from their tools that they're using, especially you know, and I'm not specifically one particular tool, but any tool that allows them to manage their supply chains better, provide them visibility on those supply chain, I think will be really important along with other things, obviously. So that I think is the key that making sure that you're prepared. And then from my internal perspective, from my company's perspective, this regulatory uncertainty does drive a lot of concern from But at the same time, we are focused on helping our customers. And I think that there is an opportunity here for both the companies that are providers as well as companies that are using those services to maximize value on both sides and help with the capital allocation that Michael has been mentioning between in these uncertain times. Where do you take the allocation? Does it go into growth? Does it go into cost efficiencies into other areas? But that's where this ends. That's the key here.

Megan - 00:34:41 Michael and Sameer, thank you both very much for being my guest today.

Michael - 00:34:45 Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you.

Megan - 00:34:47 Yeah. I really enjoyed speaking with you both, and thank you so much for finding the time to be here with us today to share your experience and knowledge, and I wish you all the best.

Sameer - 00:34:56 Thank you, Megan. Thank you again.