With great enthusiasm, we present the Italian translation of the book The Lean CFO by Nick Katko. If we were to summarise this book in one sentence, it would be:
“The ability to translate the Lean System language into the «language of money», making clear to everyone in a company the need to follow and daily apply the principles of the lean working methods.
Despite the title, this book is not only about pure accounting and financial issues. It is a useful manual to both those who implement and maintain management control systems (controllers or CFOs) as well as those who operate within the processes and who often are forced to cope with systems that are not suited to highlight the benefits of Genba improvements. It is customary to assume that “doing” lean things simply means transforming production processes by applying a set of techniques. In reality, „being” lean requires that a company transforms the way it measures itself, finding appropriate metrics to highlight the economic and financial benefits of the Lean System: this is the key to ensuring that “The company conceives Lean as «The» business strategy, rather than «a part» of the strategy”.
Nick Katko has been the CFO of several manufacturing companies where he began to study and implement lean management control methods. In 2002 he started working as a consultant to propose a new management model consistent with the Lean System’s principles. He is co-author of “The Lean Business Management System: Lean Accounting Principles and Practices Toolkit” (2007).
