Tom Vermeulen is CFO at ABS Laundry Business Solutions, where focus lies on strengthening financial control, improving decision quality, and translating operational performance into sustainable business value.
Coming from outside the laundry industry, Tom Vermeulen quickly recognised how operationally sophisticated these businesses are. “The logistics alone are genuinely complex,” he says. “Managing large volumes across clients, routes, and processes requires discipline and consistency.”
What stood out to him was not the operational side itself, but what happens after execution: how little of that complexity is consistently translated into financial steering.
“In many organisations, the operational engine runs at a high level,” Tom explains. “But the link between operations and financial decision making is often less developed than people assume.”
The Gap Between Execution and Control
Most organisations are not short on data. They are short on usable direction.
“Information is collected everywhere,” Tom says. “But in many cases it does not reach the people who actually make day to day decisions in a form they can act on.”
A recurring pattern is that insights remain concentrated at management level. By the time information is consolidated and reported upwards, it loses operational relevance.
To illustrate the impact, Tom refers to a simple management principle rather than industry specifics. “When information does not influence behaviour, it stops being a decision tool and becomes reporting hygiene.”
“The real value of data is not in reporting it correctly, but in whether it changes what people do next.”
Tom Vermeulen CFO of ABS Laundry Business Solutions
Where Value Leaks in Practice
From a CFO perspective, inefficiencies rarely appear as clear, isolated problems. They appear as small deviations that repeat over time.
“In any operation, there are always small gaps between plan and execution,” Tom explains. “On their own they are not alarming. Together they shape financial performance in a meaningful way.”
What makes this difficult is visibility. Most organisations only see outcomes, not the underlying causes that created them.
“As a result, management often reacts to symptoms instead of addressing structure,” he adds. “That is where value leakage becomes persistent.”
Why Reporting Alone is Not Enough
Many organisations believe that better reporting automatically leads to better decisions. In practice, this is not the case.
“More reporting often leads to more information, not better clarity,” Tom says. “And clarity is what drives action.”
He explains that the real challenge is not generating insights, but embedding them into the way people work.
“If information does not fit into daily decision processes, it will not be used consistently, regardless of its quality.”
“If a number is reviewed but does not influence a decision, it has no operational value.”
Tom Vermeulen CFO of ABS Laundry Business Solutions
Investment Decisions and Organisational Readiness
From a financial leadership perspective, investment decisions are not only about cost or technology. They are about readiness.
“Any investment should either reduce uncertainty or improve decision quality,” Tom explains. “Preferably both.”
However, he sees a recurring challenge in many organisations: systems are introduced without fully adapting the way decisions are made around them.
“A tool can provide visibility,” he says. “But if the organisation continues to operate in the same way as before, the impact remains limited.”
This creates a gap between potential and actual return. Closing that gap is often more important than the technology itself.
Growth and Operational Pressure
Growth is often seen as a positive signal, but from a management perspective it introduces a second layer of complexity.
“Growth increases coordination requirements,” Tom says. “And without sufficient control structures, complexity starts to outpace clarity.”
At that point, additional scale does not automatically translate into stronger performance.
“In some cases, improving internal control and consistency creates more value than expanding further,” he notes.
“Sustainable growth is not about doing more. It is about ensuring more activity leads to better outcomes.”
Tom Vermeulen CFO of ABS Laundry Business Solutions
What Stronger Organisations Tend to Do Differently
When looking across organisations at different levels of maturity, Tom sees a clear pattern.
“The stronger organisations are not necessarily those with the most data,” he says. “They are the ones that have embedded decision making into their operational rhythm.”
This means that information is not treated as a separate reporting layer, but as part of how work is executed.
“The difference is not visibility,” he adds. “It is consistency in how decisions are made across the organisation.”
One Practical Reflection
Rather than offering advice, Tom frames it as a question for leadership teams.
“Which decisions in the organisation are currently made with full clarity, and which are still based on interpretation or delay?”
He continues: “Most organisations will find that the gap is larger than expected. That gap is where performance is either lost or gained.”
The starting point is not adding more systems or more reports, but improving the connection between existing information and daily decision making.
