Stephen Allott: Financial Planning and the Theory of Constraints 2.0

For SaaS and software company founders and CEOs, growth is constrained less by ambition than by clarity, capacity and cash.

Forecasting is the discipline that turns ambition into predictable execution 

In this session, you’ll learn the best practice and most practical method, based on Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, for modelling future growth you can apply immediately. Identify the few variables that actually limit scale and how to build a credible 3–5 year cash-flow forecast? You’ll learn how to use decision-engineering principles to identify your key metrics and how to distinguish metrics that inform real decisions from vanity metrics. You will be able to reduce complex dashboards to a small, focused set of measures, and how to link each metric directly to an action you would take if it moved.

Attendees will leave with a clear modelling framework, a short list of decision-critical metrics, and a repeatable approach to running the company with greater focus and predictability.

Slides

Stephen Allott, Pebble Code
Stephen Allott

Stephen Allott

Chairman, Tarigo

Stephen Allott has rare, first-hand authority on shareholder value creation for SaaS and software companies by repeatedly building, scaling, and exiting category-leading technology businesses. 

He built the most valuable organically grown UK software company, Micromuse, to NASDAQ IPO as President, CFO, and main board director. Across multiple software businesses, he has driven growth from early scale to global dominance. As Venture Partner Emeritus at Seedcamp, Europe’s largest seed fund, he has advised hundreds of founders and supported nine unicorns. A former McKinsey strategy consultant and senior executive at Sun Microsystems and Xerox, Stephen combines operational execution, capital-markets credibility, and board-level judgment on how software companies compound long-term shareholder value.

Away from the above, Stephen is a budding pianist and table tennis player. He’s attended BoS frequently and spoken before on scenario planning in times of uncertainty (on the very day the Covid lockdown was announced in the UK), scaling software sales and businesses.

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