The strategic CFO: Success secrets of high performing finance teams
Introduction
Finance executives must meet a growing number of complex demands and challenges if their companies are to reach the next level of profitable growth.
Operational excellence around core financials is certainly essential. CFOs and their teams are expected to standardize transactional processes and deploy effective and efficient financial systems. They must deliver strong performance in everything from cash management to regulatory compliance to merely address foundational financial requirements.
But finance executives can’t stop there. To differentiate their companies and take their own careers to new levels, they must focus on strategic financials. They need to provide forward-looking insight that enhances strategic planning and decision-making. They must extend the capabilities of their financial systems beyond core activities into new areas, automating more processes and driving productivity gains still higher.
This comprehensive perspective – covering core and strategic financials – is known today as Corporate Financial Management (CFM). As CFOs focus on addressing these strategic and operational challenges, they will have to invest in CFM systems and applications that enable them to meet their objectives.
This is where a further challenge emerges.
Finance executives must deploy systems that are robust, flexible, integrated, rapidly deployable and cost effective. It is these criteria that will determine whether financial leaders are meeting their business objectives and maximizing their investments in Corporate Financial Management. In this paper, you will learn:
- Four market drivers that are transforming the world of corporate finance
- Three top challenges confronting today’s CFO
- Five critical success criteria that have guided top performing CFOs in their finance system investments
Most importantly, you will learn the success secrets that are enabling finance units to rise to an increasingly valuable position within the enterprises. You’ll discover how today’s top finance executives are seizing the strategic high ground and delivering exceptional financial guidance.
Market drivers: Why finance demands transformation
Never before have the demands on finance been so great – or the stakes so high. There are several mega-trends that are reshaping the role of finance organizations and transforming the careers of the executives in charge of them.
- Intensified Market Pressure. Surging competition is coming from all directions. Whether it is emerging domestically from increasingly productive rivals or from abroad as an array of new entrants fight for global market share, nearly all industries are in throes of hyper-competition. In order to overcome these pressures, CFOs are challenged to analyze trends, patterns and past experience with increasing precision and insight. Companies are looking to finance organizations for guidance enabling them to capitalize on their opportunities.
- Increasing Complexity. The ongoing proliferation of information technology has certainly created complexity. It has created new transactional channels on the Web and new sources of data throughout an organization. It is not uncommon to have multiple disparate systems running financial applications – creating silos of relevant data. Corporate consolidation also brings complexity as new processes, systems and data sources multiply. Against this backdrop, CFOs are charged with standardizing financial processes and ensuring relevant data is accounted for.
- Restrictive Regulatory Environments. The introduction of new regulatory statutes through Sarbanes-Oxley (Sarbox) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have created still more concerns for finance organizations. CFOs are now expected to provide transparency, visibility and control – and the personal and organizational risks associated with mismanagement of these difficult tasks are extremely severe.
- Growing Costs of Financial Talent. While the demands on finance continue to pile up, it isn’t feasible to simply add more people to manage these growing responsibilities. In this period of relatively low unemployment, talent comes at a premium. As a result, finance leaders find they must enhance, extend and leverage existing financial systems to avoid a destructive escalation of costs.
Top challenges facing CFOs at enterprising companies
This increasingly demanding environment has created a set of key problems or challenges for CFOs at enterprising companies looking for a different approach. Among them:
Process Disruptions in Core Financial Operations. Finance leaders and managers are struggling with many process challenges that might be considered core or foundational issues. They may even be mission critical. The problem is that the handling of these processes is neither effective nor efficient. Typical processes that must be considered: Procure-to-Pay; Contract-to- Collection; and Service-to-Bill.
Concerns may also arise around cash flow management problems, for instance. The accounts receivable process might be poorly designed. Systems that should be automated are not. This might hamper the enterprise’s ability to swiftly collect cash. Or accounts receivable may not be synchronized with accounts payable. Such problems can hinder a company’s ability to effectively deploy capital. They can also create earnings uncertainty and volatility that reflects poorly on executive management.
Budgeting and planning processes may be inefficient as well. According to CFO Research, 60% of companies say the budgeting and planning process takes too long. Unfortunately, companies often lack the systems necessary to accelerate the process and ensure it is consistent with company strategies.
Yet another key aspect of core financials is compliance. Is the enterprise effectively complying with Sarbox, IFRS and other regulatory statutes designed to create investor confidence? Even privately held companies need to ensure they have strong operational controls in place and have clear visibility into the business. In many cases, finance is struggling to merely keep up with today’s compliance and accountability requirements, which crowds out time and resources necessary to manage other operational responsibilities. One issue that hampers the finance team is data access. “Many companies have difficulty accessing data,” according to a recent report by Accenture and Cranfield School of Management. “This combined with the local use of spreadsheets means that no single view of data is available.”
Inability to Rise to a Strategic Level and Provide Valuable Insight. While operational excellence is necessary to merely address the core aspects of finance, it’s another challenge altogether to rise to a strategic level within the enterprise. This is the point where finance provides advice, insight and analysis that can truly differentiate a company and generate profitable growth.
Read the full The strategic CFO: Success secrets of high performing finance teams white paper here.
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