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During the pandemic-stricken past year, the focus has been on CFOs as organizations seek resilience to survive challenging short-term periods while successfully positioning themselves for the long-term future. WNS’s Krishnan Raghunathan outlines some of the major trends and developments facing CFOs.
As the business world plunges into the post-Covid-19 space, chief financial officers (CFOs) are becoming key players in the normalcy that has emerged from the chaos. Organizations are increasingly turning to them to build resilience to immediate challenges such as liquidity, cost containment and supply continuity, and to strategically position themselves for growth and future opportunities.
The role of the CFO has undoubtedly made the leap from strategic business leader to transformational digital architect with astonishing speed.
Rate the creator for future relevance
The findings of our latest Global CFO Survey, conducted in partnership with Everest Group, reveal what it takes to become a continuously future-ready CFO. In a study of more than 300 CFOs worldwide from more than 20 industry sectors, 52 percent said they are rethinking factoring business strategies in the current environment, and 50 percent said they are driving proactive initiatives to build agile, resilient and digital organizations.
Digital adoption was a top priority for 49 percent of CFOs—not only to increase productivity, but also to improve the overall customer experience. Forty-seven percent placed high importance on compliance and risk mitigation controls, and nearly the same percentage of respondents (46 percent) cited the need to improve visibility of organizational information as an important goal.
It is clear that CFOs have taken the step to make the leap from leading a critical function and key organizational leader to being an even more strategic business transformation organizer. They look further ahead to anticipate the business environment, design strategic actions, orchestrate collaboration across teams, and be key stewards of insights that will drive transformational success.
Further, CFOs understand the importance of wearing multiple hats – as a digital and technology evangelist, as a data arbiter, as a proactive business continuity planner and risk mitigator, and as a transformation leader.
Changing driving force to power
As champions of the changing future, what do CFOs think is necessary to build agile, resilient and digitally enabled organisations? More than half of the CFOs we surveyed felt it was extremely important to drive transformation initiatives and incorporate more robust business continuity plans to prepare both the organization and the finance function for the new normal.
About 53 percent believe that the organization’s location strategy needs to be rethought and capabilities for hybrid work models need to be strengthened. He feels he will enable it
- Better access to diverse talent pools
- Agile and dynamic routing of work for higher efficiency
- More efficient business continuity
- Reduced operating costs
CFOs will increasingly need to drive performance-related decisions by leveraging digital tools and leveraging consumer behavior. Third-party service providers and shared services partners have admirably and rapidly accelerated the transition of businesses from recovery and recovery to growth during the pandemic.
Our survey found that CFOs are ready to reengineer operating models where such partnerships provide strategic collaboration in designing and executing transformational journeys for their organizations.
As businesses overcome this unprecedented pandemic to move forward, there’s a sobering realization that this wasn’t the first crisis — and it won’t be the last. The CFO has the exciting responsibility of transcending control and protection to envision, enable and execute organizational and technology change. As future organizational architects, the onus is on them to unify fragmented operations and legacy systems to pave the way for digital business models.
Today, more than ever, CFOs have the tools to lead businesses in this climate and beyond. To fully realize this potential, they must embody the qualities of agility, quick decision-making, digital intelligence and resilience. As the future blends into the present in an instant, the CFO must combine bold vision with the agility of rapid, data-driven decision-making and collaborative execution.
About the author: Krishnan Raghunathan is Head of Finance and Accounting Services at WNS, an international business process management (BPM) company.
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