Three Ways CFOs Can Be a Catalyst For Change

Largely driven by advancements in technology, today’s corporate finance leaders are expected to work more collaboratively with functional areas in their companies and are well-positioned to positively support enterprise-wide performance and strategy. In order to influence business outcomes, CFOs need to be a catalyst for change by playing a much bigger role in shaping corporate strategy, implementing key initiatives, and providing data, guidance and insight.  Modern finance leaders are driving performance in three areas – operations, technology, and talent – and can impact all areas of the business as they continue evolving from finance and accounting managers to strategic business partners.

Read More at CFO Magazine >

Four Traits of Effective Finance Leaders

“CFOs are expected to wear many hats: Strategic partner, relationship builder, change agent and technology champion. But ultimately, a CFO’s top priority is to ensure sustained financial performance for the organization.”

CFOs are under increasing pressure to do it all. To become more effective in their position, they must align their efforts with their organizations’ highest priorities and become personally effective at facilitating change and shaping their company’s strategy. This means finance leaders need to focus on fewer things, even as the organization makes more demands on their time. According to Gartner, “A CFO’s personal effectiveness is measured by their performance against their CEO’s financial expectations and how well their organization exhibits “efficient growth” behaviors.”

Gartner found that personally effective CFOs follow four common practices.

Read More at Smarter with Gartner >

Re-imagine the Finance Function with Intelligent Technology

The CFO’s role is evolving, and intelligent technology is helping them work more efficiently and add greater value to the businesses. Intelligent technologies are no longer just a “nice to have” pipe dream; they’re a business reality that is changing how organizations function. Through an intelligent finance operating model, CFOs can help transform the finance function; moving from transactional and reactive to proactive and strategic. This isn’t just about achieving operational excellence, but reshaping the way businesses fundamentally work and engage with technology. CFOs are now able to overcome the burden of manual, time-consuming accounting and reporting by implementing intelligent finance applications and processes enterprise-wide to improve efficiency and free up time for more strategic tasks.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >

What Makes a Future-Focused Finance Organization?

The systems used by many companies for important business insights have many inconsistencies. They lack integration, automation, and a single version of the truth about their business. Additionally, many lack the ability to view their data in real-time to really understand what their data is trying to tell them. Today’s volatile marketplace requires more flexible finance, and modern finance leaders have leveraged intelligent technologies to provide the real-time data and reporting capacity that empowers them to drill-down to the most detailed level of information. Having one universal truth from one set of data available in real-time is extraordinarily powerful for finance leaders because it empowers the business to be faster and more agile.

Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >

The Three E’s of Strategic Finance

Finance must be an integral part of the strategic process, and successful engagement in business strategy requires finance professionals to play key roles—and often lead the process—in three specific ways: education, evaluation, and execution. Education is a key element in strategic finance because it is the bridge between data and insights. Reporting doesn’t always lead to understanding, and sharing information doesn’t always result in actionable insights. In today’s organizations, proactive education about how finance can and should influence business decisions is essential to strategic success. Evaluation involves finance’s analysis of the present reality and possible future. Finance provides future operational plans, capital project analysis, financial markets planning, and execution. Every business strategy relies on timely insights that shape business growth. Finally, execution is the orientations and skills finance professionals possess that are critical to lead strategic execution. Investors who want to diversify their assets and save for their children’s future may explore the website of The Children’s ISA.

 Read More at Strategic Finance Magazine >

How Much is Your Business Complexity Costing You?

Without the right tools in place, business complexity is not only costly, it’s also a major hindrance to developing functional agility. The ability to respond quickly to changing market and internal conditions is critical for success in today’s ever-changing business climate. Recent research from The Hackett Group reported that organizational and process complexity are the second and third biggest inhibitors of becoming an agile finance function. Complexity is combination of different factors, all of them related and often specific to an industry or company. However, finance in any industry can reap substantial benefits from reducing the complexity of its operating environment.

Read More at The Hackett Group >