What’s Shaping Cfo Leadership In The Years Ahead?

By Author: Mary Rose Somera
Total Articles: 94
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What’s Shaping CFO Leadership in the Years Ahead?

The possibility for today’s CFOs to lead the organization alongside the CEOs and make a ground-breaking positive effect in the finance function is growing as the business landscape changes quickly. To advance and prosper, finance leaders must move beyond the conventional financial functions.

Here are the top trends that are essential for changing the journey of the CFO:

Investing in Trust to Protect the Bottom

The new corporate currency for CFOs is TRUST, which influences customer loyalty and purchasing decisions as well as employee retention. However, this cannot be taken for granted. PwC’s Consumer Intelligence Series Survey on Trust uncovered a significant trust perception gap between businesses and consumers, with 87% of business executives claiming that consumers have a high level of trust in their firms whereas in reality, just roughly 30% do.

Gaining trust has much more advantages than losing it. As a finance leader, it will be crucial to invest in the fundamentals, such as reasonably priced goods and services and treating staff ...
... well, in order to convert trust into actions that can boost your bottom line.

Look Forward to a More Favorable Economic Outlook

It has been the year of endurance in 2020 and 2021. Many financial decision-makers experienced the upheaval brought on by the pandemic and realized the value of long-term technological investments. This 2022 and beyond, CFOs need to move quickly to make the necessary digital investments. CFOs should be incredibly upbeat and get ready for a growth spurt this year and for more years to come.

Finance leaders should develop adaptable business models, free up cash that is locked up in working capital, and support strategic development possibilities in order to stay up with the rapidly changing digital environment.

What are the effective working capital strategies for the organization’s benefit?

• To perform better, compare your receivable numbers to those of your competitors and conduct additional research.

• To prevent bad debts, identify and categorize your customers based on their payment history, current credit score, and DSO.

Reassess and Review Your Talent Management Plan

The most precious resource is the workforce, which gives the company long-term competitiveness. In this evolving era, talent-management techniques can guide the finance function through new modes of operation.

CFOs’ focus should be on:

Finding and Employing the Ideal Candidates

• Employ tech-savvy personnel and choose them based on their familiarity with financial automation technology.

• Create distinct sets of financial KPIs to better understand how the staff are performing.

Continue to Grow and Learn

• To assist your employees in developing their financial and technological skills, hold workshops on upskilling and reskilling.

• While concentrating on other areas of professional development that will help them grow their careers, encourage your team members to acquire digital financial abilities.

Customizing Employee Experience

• Keep your team engaged by listening to them. Engagement among employees and retention go hand in hand.

• Financial organizations that give employee experience strong attention aid with talent retention.

Commence Your Path as Digital CFO

CFOs have already begun their journey as Digital CFOs to efficiently manage and future-proof the organization. Digital transformation represents a radical rethinking of how an organization uses its people, processes, and technology to significantly alter its commercial performance. Digital technologies make processes less dangerous, more accurate, and less dependent on human labor. Cloud computing, robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning profoundly alter the business’ operations. With digital transformation in progress, digital CFOs must be aware of the best automation solutions to embrace in order to radically alter corporate performance. It’s inevitable for nearly all financial businesses to advance their digital transformation initiatives, some of them are even speeding them.

The following should be implemented in transforming into a digital CFO:

1. Adopt digital technologies that are the best match for the organization and assist employees comprehends how they will simplify day-to-day operations. It is crucial for staff to learn how to use the technology to its fullest potential.

2. Rather than making significant investments in the newest technology to obtain strategic advantages, make sure to invest in the appropriate technology that meets the needs of the firm.

Be an Agile Leader

Finance executives are no longer just the guardians of accounting data; they are also the architects of business value and the drivers of digital strategy. CFOs are required to have a distinct vision and a growth plan for the entire finance function.

How to significantly emerge in the years ahead?

Take the Initiative

• The stakeholder communications plan should be revised.

• Assess the company’s liquidity situation and develop backup measures.
• Keep the company steady and be tough

Improve Your Ability to Plan and Analyze Finances

• Review your process for making decisions.

• Be mindful of the change in client priority

• Review your investing plan

Plan a Suitable Automation Journey by Accelerating Digital Transformation.

Steps in driving digital transformation:

1. Identify processed to be automated
2. Find the right vendor
3. As-is and to-be analysis
4. Stakeholder buy-in
5. Business case evaluation
6. Pilot deployment strategy
7. Change management
8. Next wave implementation strategy
9. Tracking post go-live performance
10. Having a future vision for opportunities

CFOs must adapt to the shifting landscape, prepare for the coming years by grasping the significance of technology and planning resource allocation processes effectively, and participate in this digital transformation movement to avoid obsolescence.

Driving your company leaves little time for optimizing your finances. Consider bringing on an expert CFO through Credo!