Business Success Factors in 2026
February 12, 2026
CFO Outlook: Key Factors that will Shape SMB Success this Year
SMBs are navigating a complex economic landscape right now. To make more sense of it all and understand where CEOs, owners, and leadership teams should focus their attention in the year ahead, we sat down with three fractional CFOs from vcfo’s Houston team. Their perspectives on three overarching questions converge on several recurring themes that every SMB leader needs to hear.
Dustin Williamson
Managing Director, Houston
Dustin Williamson is a financial and management professional with over 25 years of experience, leading vcfo’s Houston market by mentoring consultants, overseeing quality initiatives, and driving strategic growth.
Krupa Amlani
Consulting CFO
Krupa Amlani is a senior financial executive with over 20 years of experience, known for providing steady, strategic guidance through periods of organizational and financial change. She brings deep expertise in cash flow management, financial forecasting, investor relations, and complex contract negotiations, helping organizations maintain stability while preparing for growth.
Micheal McVey
Senior Consultant
Micheal McVey is a seasoned financial executive with over 25 years of experience, known for aligning financial strategy with operations to drive growth, efficiency, and lasting impact.
Where should SMB owners and CEOs be investing energy and resources over the next 6 to 12 months?
Dustin Williamson: You can’t control external factors like the economy, government, or policy decisions. You can control your focus and discipline with cash forecasting and management. If you’re not actively assessing where cash might be leaking out of your company, you’re going to get whipsawed by external factors you can’t control. So, focus on what you can control and measure. Get a solid set of KPIs, not only at different business levels (e.g., investors, CFO, CEO), but also for mid-level management to ensure people are driving the right data points tied to how they create value. If you’re not measuring cash and the right sets of KPIs, you’re constantly going to be behind the 8-ball.
Krupa Amlani: For many of the healthcare organizations I advise, the political and regulatory landscape has shifted materially, reshaping how leaders must think about financial and operational strategy. Nonprofits are feeling the strain from grant pauses and federal budget cuts putting immediate pressure on liquidity and cash management.
As a result, my primary focus has been, and continues to be, helping organizations gain true visibility and control over cash. Cash is not the same as revenue. Cash is what keeps a company operating, especially in uncertain environments. Leaders should be investing in tighter, more dynamic cash forecasting, not simply relying on budgets that were approved based on last year’s assumptions. Given today’s volatility, it’s critical to recast budgets, forecast forward, and consistently track results against actual financial performance.
Beyond cash preservation, I’m also working closely with leadership teams to drive operational efficiency not through indiscriminate cost cutting, but by thoughtfully examining roles, systems, processes, and enabling technologies. This includes understanding where work is duplicated, where rework occurs, and how time, talent, and capital can be better aligned to produce outcomes that matter to patients, clients, and stakeholders. Technologies such as automation and AI are increasingly transformational in this regard, but only when implemented with intention.
Reliable, trusted data sits at the center of all of this. Without it, even the best systems fail to deliver value. I’m currently working with a client whose operations lacked efficiency despite having multiple systems in place. The issue wasn’t access to tools it was optimization and alignment. We are now making targeted investments in automation and AI, while remaining disciplined about cash, and recalibrating the budget to reflect these strategic priorities.
Micheal McVey: I’ll just echo that you must understand your cash. It’s not just a forecast. It’s how you get it, when you get it, and what it’s used for. Understand the operational side of cash (leakage and efficiency). Cash can vanish quickly if you’re not careful. As one of our colleagues noted, the days of static annual budgets are gone. Companies need dynamic strategic planning that’s continual.
With KPIs, I’ve also found that many clients expend a lot of energy measuring things that really don’t matter that much or lean too heavily on data that produces more noise than signal. Again, understand what drives your cash and business.
Krupa Amlani: The key takeaway for leaders is this: making the right investments at the right time requires alignment. Whether implementing AI, automation, accounting platforms, or HR systems, organizations must be clear on the “why,” ensure the right stakeholders are involved from the outset, and operate from a shared, data-driven understanding. When initiatives are approached in silos or without foundational clarity, the risk of failure increases significantly.
Dustin Williamson: Several examples of companies being impacted by inattention to cash, suboptimal processes and procedures, and siloed operations come to mind. In oilfield services or any industrial company, uploads from these companies to their clients’ companies for A/R and other things happen regularly. If it’s not done right and gets kicked back without the right checks and controls, it can essentially disappear from your ERP system and books and not be included in numbers you’re turning into the bank. It creates a dynamic where you’re counting on that A/R being there and it’s not. The A/R could also age out. The silos and gaps in processes and procedures show up as leakage in cash reports if they’re not watched properly.
What trends are you keeping a close eye on that you believe will significantly impact businesses in the next year or two?
Dustin Williamson: Capital is getting a lot more selective and expensive. The interest rates have been incrementally ratcheting down, but the cost of capital is still just as expensive and it’s getting more selective. Where the capital is drying up, the capital that is available becomes more expensive. Private equity is getting more choosy and more deals are stalling. In many cases, we’ve seen that sellers don’t particularly understand their value proposition and how they’re being viewed from the buyer’s perspective.
Krupa Amlani: I’ll add that the banks are not very entrepreneur-friendly right now. They’re more conservative and the demand of collateral is getting higher. Banks, PE firms, and boards are asking tougher questions -about liquidities, controls, forecasts, and more. The days of growth at any cost are behind us in my opinion, plus there’s a greater thirst for transparency.
Micheal McVey: Personal bankruptcies are also trending upward, so a lot of banks and entrepreneurs don’t have relatively strong collateral – it’s not to the value that they’re looking for. That puts a lot of squeeze on SMBs.
This tightening access to capital discussion also brings back the importance of strong, reliable forecasting. Investment firms will watch your forecast. If you forecast a three and it comes in at a seven, why didn’t you know about the other four? The wider the swings, the more their trust and willingness to partner with you erodes.
Krupa Amlani: We talked briefly about AI but applying technology to optimize, reduce manual work, and improve accuracy continues to be a big theme. It can free up people to allocate more time to strategic thinking and less time to menial tasks. Technology and AI shouldn’t be viewed as levers for replacing teams, but more as tools for exposing and addressing inefficiencies.
Related to the systems and technology implementation conversation, you also have to honestly assess whether you have a staff that’s ready to embrace the changes that AI and other technology will bring. Can they adapt to that change fast enough?
If you could give business owners just one piece of advice right now, what would it be?
Krupa Amlani: Get closer to your numbers, but don’t get lost in them. As a CEO or leadership team member, you don’t need to be an accountant, but you do need to understand the story that your financials are telling you. Ask simple but powerful questions to your finance and your CFO office. Where are we making money? Where are we losing money? Are these programs really beneficial and cost effective for the company? What could break us today?
Micheal McVey: An example here is the earlier point that revenue is not cash. So many times we get a CEO, COO, or owner who equates having $10M in revenue with having $10M in cash.
Krupa Amlani: I’d also say to make decisions related to these tough questions early. Don’t sit on the problem too long. Often, we see the writing on the wall that you’ve been procrastinating to make those decisions. When you don’t make those decisions early, cash forces you to make them at some point but with fewer options.
Dustin Williamson: The number one thing I would tell business owners to focus on is discipline. It’s a discipline to focus on the health of the company and starting with cash versus putting band-aids on things as you’re running through the year. The big picture is about creating options. For example, the best companies that are the most saleable are the ones throwing off the most cash. They give the owners the most freedom and allow for the owners to separate themselves from the business because their leadership team is empowered to run the business without them. Creating those options only comes from a clear strategy, great capital discipline, and clean financials that show you where the cash is going.
Micheal McVey: I also find that many execs will chase too many things they want to fix, and then none of them get fixed. Don’t go after ten items with wishful thinking. Go after a crucial few that you can really get done. Finish those, then go for the next ones. Have the discipline to do the right things first.
Setting the Stage for a Successful Year
2026 will reward SMB leaders who embrace discipline, transparency, and adaptability. Watching cash closely, tightening processes, and investing in technology with purpose—not panic—will separate resilient companies from vulnerable ones. And while external forces like interest rates, banking behavior, and capital availability remain outside a CEO’s control, the ability to plan dynamically, ask the right questions, and act early is firmly within reach. For SMB owners looking to strengthen their position in the year ahead, the strategic insights shared by these CFOs offer a powerful roadmap.
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