“CFM’s purpose isn’t simply about making money. We wake up every day believing in our mission to redefine banking by righting the wrongs and delivering innovations aligned to market needs–which in turn has led to tremendous success.”

“An interview with John W. Smith, CEO of CFM, a model “Best Company” that’s collecting accolades in handfuls including double digit growth for the past 7 years straight, being named one of Inc., 5,000 Fastest Growing, recognized among Arizona’s Most Innovative and Most Admired firms, and recently selected for several innovation awards including Top Banking Analytics Solution, and Best Fintech Software Solution of the Year.”

Every entrepreneur and business owner is looking for answers to creating a successful company and product. The challenge is often identifying what the market really needs and how to build the team and culture to execute. CFM, a startup company located in the heart of the tech corridor in Chandler, Arizona, has found the secret to changing an industry is as close as listening to your customer’s everyday struggles and challenges.

Explains John W. Smith, CFM CEO, “If you observe, ask, and listen with the right intent–customers will typically surface what doesn’t work. For us, that’s enough to start exploring ways we can help and change a market. The motivation and fun is both figuring out what is getting in the way, and doing “what if” scenarios to potential solutions. This sole track can and does lead to new innovations and big growth.” Innovations and growth has found its way to CFM, who works exclusively with banks and credit unions to redefine banking and client experiences in the branch through technology integrations into teller platforms. As the second company from a core group of executives, Smith states, “We’ve really identified the art and science behind defining a problem, understanding its root cause and developing a means to solve it.”

While this sounds simple enough, it also takes significant hutzpah and investment to take on the challenge of innovating an industry. More specifically, millions of dollars of investment upfront and betting that you have it right. But CFM has and continues to use this “art and science” formula to drive tremendous success in a small niche Fintech space. The resulting innovations have become central solutions to some of the largest financial institutions in the United States.

CFM takeoff

It all began in the late 2000’s, when six executives at CFM’s sister company, DBSI, observed that banks and credit unions were making tremendous investments in cash handling technology, but didn’t have an effective means of integrating it into their core platforms. As lack of integration typically goes, this resulted in overwhelming errors and manual entry. Additionally, the only solutions that were available were very limited in functionality to driving full value, and proprietary in nature with specific lock-in to individual manufacturers essentially removing the choice of what hardware to purchase. As stated by Smith, “Our industry was struggling, and CFM was literally created to right these wrongs.” Officially forming in 2008, CFM launched S4, its initial product. Today, that solution is used in thousands of branches across 43 states. Revenues and personnel have tripled and CFM has grown to offer a whole ecosystem of integrated solutions for transforming branch experiences.

CFM’s devotion to its customers

“We’d love to simply build it and have customers to come, but we’ve grown to understand it takes a lot more than that”, states Smith. “We know it’s more about having the right structure and taking on a view as if we were sitting in the customer’s chairs.”

CFM’s innovation roadmap currently has 14 initiatives on it, all created with a devotion to helping customers and aligning to their needs. This includes iQ, a business intelligence tool that answers the burning questions customer have about their cash automation technology such as if it’s being used, being used accurately, and when it needs serviced. Another innovation called NEXT is designed to help migrate costs out of the branch while still maintaining a human touch for support and sales.  Finally, we’re even tackling Universal Associates and siloed job functions with a solution called RTA.

Smith gives 3 key factors to CFM’s constant innovation process:

1) We never simply think of ourselves, rather we think of the problems and challenge our customers face and how we can solve them. And, there is a lot to solve. Good things tend to happen for us when we do (a good lesson in everydaylife as well!)

2) Its one thing to think that way, it’s another to actually come up with problem solving innovation, and we’re lucky to have a guru, our founder John Dillon, for that. Even luckier that he is one of only a handful that can green light the investment.

3) Finally, we don’t pretend that this is easy. It’s not! So, we have a dedicated Innovation Team that has a dialed in process to move things quickly from concept, to business case, to statement of work, to development and launch. 

All of these factors ultimately lead to innovation that aligns perfectly to our customers and a differentiating culture that is creating raving fans in the banking industry.

Drink Tank Think Tank, and Other Secret Sauce Tips

With a clear vision for continuing to revolutionize the banking industry, what other advice can entrepreneurs take from CFM’s experience? Smith shared his top ones that have led CFM to victory:

• Have an innovation guru. In this case, it happens to be our founder, John Dillon. He sees solutions to critical industry issues that simply change the game.
• Plan a robust innovation roadmap. The key is not all innovations work, so give your company a chance to find out what sticks. The solution itself is critical, but solid packaging, promotion, and business development are the final pieces to get true traction.
• We have expertise in a focused market. For us to solve problems we needed to intimately know the drivers, barriers, and objectives of our core client base – we did that.
• Start with the right business strategy. We have a mantra inside our company to ”develop the company we’d want to hire.” This led to creating agnostic solutions. If we were the customer, we’d want choice in what hardware we could buy, and subsequently software that drives all hardware consistently to ensure legacy and new products worked the same. By looking at what we are developing from this perspective, it aligns us well with providing value for our customers.
• Create a culture you want to be a part of. Why? We don’t want team members to follow the status quo. If we see wrongs, we want to right them. So, redefinition to add value is highly encouraged which leads to a really exciting job! We are truly one together; we have profit sharing for every team member. We have an Ideation Center and Collaborator where customers can come learn, see, and interact with the latest in technology and understand firsthand how it can align to their objectives. We have a “drink tank” think tank, because sometimes it simply takes a bit of a spark to get “creative.”  And, yes a Bat Pole to scale from one floor to another!

Cheers to the forward-thinking line-up

6 core executives stand behind the creation and development of CFM. John Dillon (Principal), Jim Ransco (Principal), Debra Dillon (Principal), John W. Smith (CEO), JC Chen (Head of Development), & Nathan Moore (Head of Business Operations). The essence was to Redefine Banking, a complex task, but to do so by use of a simple formula … automation + integration = transformation. To do this CFM needed to take on some of the industry’s biggest challenges, transform how technology was integrated, and bring robust innovation to the market. These forward-thinking executives have led CFM’s software to become an industry norm in the banking market and the company has posted double digit growth for the past 7 years straight.

"It turns out if you have the right intent, can solve a real problem, ensure the scope of what you want to develop is accurate, and have the talent onboard to execute, good things happen. Our calling just happens to be banking.”