For the study, “The CFO Agenda 2020: Getting Ready for the Digital Age”, PAC interviewed 301 CFOs in medium-sized and large companies in 12 countries globally and across all industry sectors. The results show that CFOs see the provision of financial information for business decision-support and business risk management as their top priorities, followed by greater control and transparency across finance processes. But compliance fulfillment, efficiency and cost control also remain key demands on the finance function.
With a view to the future, the large majority of CFOs agree that pressure will increase on the finance function. Dr. Katharina Grimme, Principal Consultant at PAC and lead consultant of the study says: “CFOs are increasingly challenged to master the balancing act between operational efficiency and more effective support for strategic business activities.”
Digital technologies are perceived as important enablers for the finance function to achieve its strategic objectives. Not surprisingly, process automation has greatest value for CFOs, as it helps to improve the efficiency, speed and quality of processing tasks by reducing the amount of manual work involved in conducting day-to-day operations.
But CFOs also attach a high importance to mobile technology, as anytime, anywhere access to data or financial reporting enable greater control and transparency over business performance. Similarly, analytics not only serve to gain insights on operational efficiency, but also help to mitigate business risk and to better monitor and steer business performance.
Still, 40 percent of the survey respondents only see a minor or no impact from digital technologies, which in PAC–s view, indicates that they are underestimating the changes – and potential benefits – that are arising from the increasing pervasiveness of digital technologies in the longer term.
Danila Meirlaen, VP of Worldwide Business Process Services at HP says: “CFOs are well aware of the advantages from digital technologies. Developing and deploying a standard global operating model and fundamentally transforming the finance organization and reducing costs through technology-driven BPS remains a primary objective. The challenge will be to fully embrace digital transformation to maximize the potential benefits arising from technology deployment. To achieve the benefits of digital technology, CFOs will have to collaborate not only externally, but also with other parts of the business, such as IT, sales and marketing or customer service.”
External service providers, such as finance consultants or F&A business process service providers, are increasingly perceived as a valuable support: Their technology and business process expertise is shown to be well acknowledged by CFOs. The study reveals that two thirds of the CFOs surveyed plan to start, continue or expand their engagement with external service providers within the next 2-3 years. Katharina Grimme adds: “We were surprised to see the future demand to be so high. While today, only one third of companies work with external service providers, the study results indicate that this will double over the next years.” It illustrates that CFOs see external support as increasingly important to help them master the challenges resulting from increasing demands on the finance function as well as the impact from digital transformation.
About the report:
The study “The CFO Agenda 2020: Getting Ready for the Digital Age” provides up-to-date views on the strategic priorities for CFOs in medium-sized and large companies and how these are expected to change. It also analyzes CFOs– perception of the importance and impact of different digital technologies and how well they are prepared to take advantage of them. It highlights how CFOs are seeing their role change in light of technology and the need for closer collaboration with other business units. Furthermore, the report analyzes the current and planned use of external providers and how these are perceived to be able to support CFOs– future challenges.
The study is based on a representative survey among 301 CFOs in medium-sized and large organizations (with more than US$1bn revenue) in 12 countries globally and across all industry sectors. The telephone interviews were carried out in April and May 2014.
A short version of the study can be downloaded for free under the link below.
In-depth studies by region (for Americas, Europe and AsiaPac) as well as the full global study and a number of spotlight analyses on the CFO Agenda 2020 will be published over the course of the next weeks.
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