The Ledger

CFO Insights: Provoking the Future: How CFOs Can Take Action to Illuminate Uncertainty

“Build scenario-planning muscles. In a linear world, it was customary to consider a dominant version of the future and construct possible variations around it. Now, with so much about the future up for grabs, CFOs need to have sufficient humility to acknowledge that nobody knows how things are going to turn out and to consider multiple, equally plausible futures. As they explain that future using numbers and models, the gaps will enable them to identify uncertainties. As the actual future develops, they may adjust those scenarios dynamically. Every five years, they may even have to start over.”

Read More at Deloitte >

CFO Journal: Fragile Supply Chains Confront Ongoing Threat From the Russia-Ukraine War

“How detailed is your supply chain information? Visibility into suppliers is only as comprehensive as the information that is being captured and reported. Companies may identify and survey their most critical suppliers, but they often stop there. In the Deloitte procurement survey, 75% of CPOs chose enhanced supplier information-sharing as their top supply risk mitigation strategy. Visibility into suppliers’ operational performance can be critical in meeting sudden changes in demand.”

Read More at The Wall Street Journal >

CFO Dive: CFOs to Boost IT, Tech Budgets in Face of Inflation: Gartner

““We’re increasingly seeing sort of a pivot in finance, [where we’re] moving away from finance being the transactional record keeper to finance becoming more of the financial insights department,” Horvat said in an interview. “So what we’re seeing is CFOs leveraging new data and analytics techniques…to identify abilities to save money within the organization.””

Read More at CFO Dive >

CFO Insights: Future scenarios: Are CFOs Too Worried About Inflation—or Not Worried Enough?

“As CFOs watch inflation numbers rise month after month, so may the intensity of their concerns. Now that it has climbed to an altitude unseen for 40 years, they may be tempted to assume that it is bound to go even higher.

But what if the picture we have today isn’t a reliable guide to what’s ahead? What if by next year inflation is trending down? Or maybe even has dropped into disinflation, with the Consumer Price Index hovering between 0% and 1% as a result of a faster-than-expected resolution of supply chain disruptions combined with diminished consumer demand.”

Read More at Deloitte >