High Performance after the Crisis: How Australian CFOs are Managing and Transforming the Finance Function

While Australia has escaped even a technical recession, the global economic crisis has been a wake-up call that will change the way businesses operate and the assumptions they make for years to come. Australia’s CFOs are responding by focusing on four key areas to help manage their organisations better for the current period and to ensure performance and resilience in the future.

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While Australia has been fortunate to escape the worst of the impact of the global economic crisis, the past two years have been far from easy for most businesses and there is potential for continued challenges ahead—either at home or in key overseas markets. CFOs, like their colleagues in the C-suite, are seeking ways to help companies respond to the challenges and position themselves to take advantage of better times ahead. Findings from the Accenture High Performance Business research have confirmed that during previous recessions, high performers transformed their operating models to achieve these two goals.

Accenture undertook research to discover how Australian CFOs are approaching this challenge. We surveyed 52 Australian CFOs and senior financial executives in early 2009, 70 percent of whom were from the private sector. This research complements a 2008 global survey of 408 senior financial executives. Both pieces of research form part of the ongoing Accenture High Performance Business research initiative.

• Nearly three-quarters of Australian CFOs included process standardization in their two-year action plans, compared with only 53 percent of their global peers.
  
  
• Seventy-eight percent of Australian CFOs are completely or mostly satisfied that the business executives they support have access to the information they need. The global figure is much lower at 61 percent.
  
  
• Australian CFOs are planning more initiatives to improve operational excellence than their global counterparts.
  
  
• Australian CFOs, like their global counterparts, believe that they are spending too much time managing the operations and not enough time spent on the things that matter.
  
  
• Australian CFOs recognize that there is a huge gap in where they are today and where they want to be. They indicate that in the next two years they want to increase the maturity of their finance function significantly across all areas of finance.
  
  
• Australian CFOs are focused on transforming and partnering with the business over the next two years with nearly 75 percent of Australian CFOs planning to develop and implement a finance strategy over the next two years compared with only 46 percent of their global peers.
  
  
• Eighty-two percent of Australian CFOs are satisfied with the finance function’s contribution to the financial performance of the enterprise but see room for improvement in its impact on driving organization-wide change. (Only 64 percent are satisfied or very satisfied with the finance function’s performance in this area.)
  

Accenture’s research indicated four key areas in which Australian CFOs are planning to take bold action:

• Improving operational excellence within the finance function.
• Defining a clear and compelling finance strategy.
• Managing value across the enterprise.
• Increasing the maturity of the finance function .

The global financial crisis has provided a new impetus for change at many companies and for CFOs in particular. The research confirms that Australia’s CFOs are seizing their unique opportunity to affect change and drive value.

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