Direzione Finanziaria — Numeri chiari. Decisioni migliori.
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Case studies

What changes in a business when financial leadership comes in

Every case is told the same way: the starting point, what we did and the result. They are representative scenarios, built on recurring dynamics in SMEs: they show how the tools work, not the story of a client.

Let’s talk about your businessDiscover the Method

Representative scenario

+€123K

working capital

liquidity released by reducing days sales outstanding

Industrial SME

Revenue €3.2 m · 18 employees · 9-month engagement

Before

  • Average DSO 78 days
  • EBITDA margin 6.8%
  • Reporting available after around 25 days
  • No structured 13-week cash flow

What we did

  • Rolling 13-week cash flow
  • Job costing and control
  • Monthly budget and management KPIs
  • Receivables monitoring and collections schedule

After

  • DSO 78 → 64 days
  • EBITDA margin 6.8% → 9.4%
  • Reporting 25 → 8 days
  • Cash forecast error 27% → 8%

Fourteen fewer days to collect are worth around €123,000 of capital that stays in the business.

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Representative scenario

+€46.4K

annualised EBITDA

annualised improvement in the reference scenario

B2B services

Revenue €1.45 m · 12 employees · 7-month engagement

Before

  • Growing revenue, profitability hard to read by client and service
  • EBITDA margin 5.9% (around €85,550)
  • Average contribution margin 31.5%
  • Around 18% of revenue at insufficient margins

What we did

  • Management accounting by service line
  • Margin analysis by client
  • Pricing review and hours budget
  • Productivity KPIs and monthly reporting

After

  • Contribution margin 31.5% → 36.2%
  • EBITDA margin 5.9% → 9.1%
  • EBITDA €85,550 → €131,950
  • Less profitable contracts renegotiated or closed

The activities that were absorbing margin were repriced, redesigned or let go.

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Representative scenario

0.94 → 1.35

minimum DSCR

after re-planning the financial structure

Investment

Industrial SME · revenue €2.1 m · investment €650,000

Before

  • Planned investment €650,000
  • €200,000 equity + €450,000 five-year loan
  • Business plan economically positive, cash profile critical
  • Minimum DSCR 0.94 · cash low point -€92,000

What we did

  • Investment split into three phases (€250k / €220k / €180k)
  • Loan term extended from 5 to 7 years
  • Grace period restructured
  • Minimum cash reserve, rolling forecast and stress test

After

  • Minimum DSCR 0.94 → 1.35
  • Cash low point -€92,000 → +€108,000
  • Liquidity buffer: around €200,000 of difference
  • Investment maintained, financial structure sustainable

The investment was not scaled back: it was financed in a way the company could sustain.

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Representative scenario

€5,000 + 5%

economic model

fixed annual component plus a variable fee on contracts

Monetising an asset

Construction / public works · SOA qualification OG1 class II

Before

  • Technical qualification with unmonetised potential value
  • A company requirement sitting idle on the books, not an asset

What we did

  • Contract model with fixed and variable components
  • Oversight of supervision and control activities
  • Fee linked to the value of contracts awarded

After

  • Fixed annual fee €5,000, variable fee 5%
  • On a €300,000 contract: €20,000 of potential contractual economic value
  • On the theoretical threshold of €516,000: €30,800

A technical requirement became an asset with an economic model, not a fixed cost.

The scenarios shown are for illustrative purposes and are built on recurring dynamics in SMEs. The economic figures are examples and do not represent a promise of results.

How I read a case

A result counts if it can be measured and if it can be repeated

Every business has a different story, but the sequence is always the same: first you measure where you are, then you act on a few levers at a time, finally you check the variance between what was expected and what actually happened. It is the part that distinguishes financial leadership from advice after the event.

The scenarios you find here reconstruct situations that recur in SMEs: they serve to show how the tools work, not to tell a client’s story. The figures are examples and are declared as such beneath each card.

What you find in every card

  • the economic and financial starting point
  • the tools put in place, in the order they were introduced
  • the result, with the indicator that measures it
  • how long it took for it to become visible

01 — Method

Metodo Direzione Finanziaria™

The four-phase path that supports expansion, reorganisation and business crisis, to make your company competitive, organised and ready for sustainable growth — or for building the value that a future exit requires.

Discover the Method

02 — Services

Services for SMEs

The offer for business owners and SMEs: from outsourced financial leadership to management control, from business crisis to budgeting and business planning.

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06 — Questions

FAQ

The questions business owners ask most often about access to credit, sustainable growth, margin control, exit strategy, generational handover and much more.

Read the answers

About

I am Alfredo Cerabino, outsourced CFO for SMEs

I started in tax and corporate advisory in an accountancy practice, then chose to go directly into companies with management responsibilities: staff to coordinate, suppliers and banks to negotiate with, budgets to deal with. From inside many organisations I have lived the same dynamics every business owner faces, and it is from this wider perspective that my method of strategic outsourced financial leadership was born.

Outsourced financial leadership for SMEs · value building and exit

Today I bring this dual technical and managerial expertise inside SMEs as an outsourced finance director, a continuous point of reference for management control, financial planning, strategic decisions, crisis management and building the company’s value. This experience across different fields allows me to step in both on growth paths and in situations of financial rebalancing and business restructuring.

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Alfredo Cerabino, chartered accountant and outsourced CFO for SMEs

Let’s talk

Does your business look like one of these cases?

If you recognised yourself in one of the starting points, the first step is the same in every case: an honest picture of the numbers. Write to me to arrange a first, confidential and exploratory conversation.

info@direzionefinanziaria.it See all services for SMEs

A first, confidential and exploratory conversation. Your data is treated in confidence and never passed on to third parties.