CTD Strategy Round Table: Cross-Functional Alignment Is Now a Non-Negotiable for Mid-Sized Companies

Table of Contents

1. The Hidden Cost of Leadership Silos
2. Why Forecasting Has Become the Most Important Leadership Tool
3. How Misaligned Marketing Decisions Destroy Profitability
4. The Risky Trend of Scaling to Profitability
5. The New Cross-Functional Skillset Leaders Now Need
6. Why Cash Flow Forecasting Beats Gut Feel Every Time
7. Aligning Your Leadership Team Around Shared Forward-Looking Numbers
8. Final Thoughts
   

The Hidden Cost of Leadership Silos

Leadership silos are not created deliberately. They usually form slowly as each function gets busier, more specialised and more protective of its own metrics. Marketing hones in on platform performance. Sales pushes for volume. Operations tries to protect capacity. Finance produces reports that explain what already happened. None of this is wrong, but the combination creates a business that can look successful on the surface while still bleeding cash underneath.

The problem is simple. Each department is looking at a small piece of the puzzle and almost no one is looking at the whole picture. A team might be celebrating a strong ROAS at the same time the finance team is panicking about a cash hole, or operations is falling behind because marketing promoted stock the warehouse barely had. This is how companies grow broke. Leaders make decisions based on isolated wins instead of the overall outcome that matters most. That outcome is profit and cash flow.

If you see this dynamic inside your own company, do not ignore it. It is usually the first sign that your leadership rhythms need tightening and that your business is outgrowing the way it currently makes decisions. 

Why Forecasting Has Become the Most Important Leadership Tool

Forecasting has become one of the most critical capabilities for mid-sized companies. Not because accountants ask for it or because it looks tidy on a spreadsheet, but because it gives leaders the single thing they need most: visibility. When you look forward instead of backward, decision-making changes. You stop relying on gut feel. You stop getting blindsided by lumpy expenses. You stop hiring too early or too late. You stop wasting money on advertising you cannot sustain.

The market is too volatile for guesswork. Cash cycles are more unpredictable. Acquisition costs are rising. Consumers are more reactive. Without disciplined forecasting, leaders are constantly playing catch up. As Glenn pointed out during the Roundtable, forecasting turns ambiguity into certainty and allows leaders to plan hiring, investment and marketing spend with far more confidence. When you know what is coming in and what is going out, your business immediately becomes less risky and far easier to grow.

If forecasting is something you are doing lightly or only when forced to, it is time to increase the level of discipline. 

How Misaligned Marketing Decisions Destroy Profitability

One of the clearest areas where alignment breaks down is in marketing. Too many businesses still make decisions based on channel metrics alone. Someone sees a strong cost per acquisition and thinks the campaign is a success, even though the warehouse is out of stock. Someone else sees a spike in CPMs and assumes the creative is failing, when in reality the market is tightening because of peak season. Someone pushes spend on a top performing ad without checking whether the margin on that product can support the cost of acquisition.

This is where profitability gets quietly eroded. A business can be winning in its dashboards while losing in its bank account. When you trust platform metrics without tying them to stock, cash flow, margin and real buyer behaviour, you are essentially flying blind. If you are still making marketing decisions in isolation you are putting unnecessary pressure on the rest of the company and reducing the financial runway your business depends on.

The Risky Trend of “Scaling to Profitability”

A dangerous trend is appearing across e-commerce and service businesses. It is the belief that you can scale your way into profitability by pushing harder, spending more and increasing top line revenue. This normally works for a while, right up until the moment you run out of cash. Scaling to profitability is always a gamble. It forces the business to chase results it cannot consistently fund. It also becomes addictive. Once you start relying on advertising to sustain sales, you often find there is no real underlying brand health or customer loyalty to fall back on.

Kate highlighted exactly what happens when businesses push for scale without understanding their cash cycles. Spend goes up. Metrics look exciting. Then the business suddenly hits a cash wall because the cost of acquisition outpaced the cash conversion cycle. Once that happens, leaders panic and pull back spending which immediately kills momentum. It is a vicious loop that can take years to recover from. This is not smart growth. It is a pattern that exposes businesses to huge financial risks for very little actual gain.

The New Cross-Functional Skillset Leaders Now Need

Modern leadership requires broader commercial understanding than ever before. It is no longer enough for marketing to understand campaigns, or for finance to understand reporting, or for operations to understand workflow. Every leader needs literacy across margins, stock velocity, acquisition cost, lifetime value, revenue pacing, and cash flow cycles. Without this shared understanding, every department makes the best decision for itself rather than the best decision for the business.

This shift is not optional. The market no longer rewards siloed expertise. The businesses that thrive are the ones where leaders understand each other’s world and see the consequences of their decisions across the entire system. When a marketer understands the impact of margin, or when an operations manager understands the cost of acquisition, or when the finance team understands the realities of growth, the entire business becomes more resilient.

If your leadership team does not yet operate with this level of commercial awareness, we can help you build it. It is one of the fastest ways to lift performance.

Why Cash Flow Forecasting Beats Gut Feel Every Time

Many organisations rely on intuition because it feels faster. Leaders hire when things feel busy, cut spend when things feel tight and increase spend when sales feel soft. It is reactive and emotional. It also creates enormous risk. The alternative is simple. Forecasting gives you a structured view of upcoming obligations, expected revenue, cash cycles and pressure points well before they hit. This removes panic from decision-making.

Forecasting reduces emotional load and allows leaders to operate from certainty rather than fear or instinct. When you know a tight patch is coming, you can prepare for it. When you know a surplus is forming, you can invest it wisely. When you know your ads are working but cash availability is weak, you can allocate spend with intention rather than hope. This level of clarity changes the way companies grow.

Aligning Your Leadership Team Around Shared Forward-Looking Numbers

The highest performing teams do one thing differently. They operate from the same source of truth. Sales plans are based on forecasted capacity. Operations prepares based on projected revenue. Marketing invests based on what the business can afford, not what the platforms say. Finance is not stuck reporting on what already happened. Every leader is looking at the same forecast, the same risks and the same opportunities.

When leadership teams operate this way, accountability strengthens. Communication improves. Decision-making becomes faster. Most importantly, profitability stops being accidental and starts being intentional. This alignment is how you de-risk the business and create smoother, more predictable growth through market volatility.

Final Thoughts

Everything we discussed in the Roundtable leads to one conclusion. Cash flow is the real scorecard of your business, and forecasting is the discipline that protects it. Silo-based thinking is not a leadership structure. It is a risk. Separate dashboards are not a strategy. They are a distraction. The businesses that thrive from here will be the ones that treat forecasting as a leadership skill, build commercial awareness across every function and unite their departments around the numbers that actually matter.

If you want more alignment across your leadership team and a clearer picture of what the next three to twelve months will look like, we are here to help. Reach out and let us show you what a more disciplined, future-focused operating rhythm can unlock for your business.