The Cash Flow Puzzle - Why staying profitable is not enough for SMEs

​Your P&L says you made money last quarter. Your bank balance disagrees. If that sounds familiar, this session is for you.

​Profitable businesses run out of cash every day in the UAE, and it is almost never because the owner did something reckless. It happens because growth, payment terms, inventory and one large customer quietly pull cash out of the business faster than the profit comes in. In this two-hour working session you will run a simulated Dubai trading company through six months of ordinary decisions and watch it become more profitable and less solvent at the same time. Then you will map your own cash conversion cycle and find out which of the four cash traps your business is sitting in.

​Bring a rough sense of your revenue, receivables, payables and inventory. You will use them in the room.

​Best suited to: Businesses trading for more than a year with monthly revenue above AED 300,000.

​Who it is for

• ​Owners and general managers who read a P&L but have never built a cash flow statement

• ​Finance leads who need a way to explain the cash position to a founder or a board

• ​Businesses that have grown revenue in the past year and felt tighter, not easier

​What attendees leave with

• ​Their own cash conversion cycle, calculated in the room

• ​A named diagnosis of their cash gap: growth trap, terms trap, inventory trap or concentration trap

• ​A certificate of completion attested by Dubai Chambers and Comfi