The CFO’s Role in Achieving Operational Excellence

The current economy has reinforced the importance of operational excellence, as C-suite executives are challenged to better use existing resources, reduce operating costs and position their companies to be high-performance businesses. Accenture defines operational excellence as being achieved when a set of strategies are integrated with execution so that new sources of growth, optimized processes and balanced costs are delivered with minimal complexity, maximum speed and effective change management.

Accenture recently conducted research with CFO Research Services to learn more about how CFOs and senior financial professionals see their role in improving their company’s operating performance. This latest research confirmed what we have seen in our own High Performance Business research and our client work: that CFOs and senior financial professionals can be critical to the success of operational excellence initiatives.

CFOs bring an invaluable perspective to strategic planning and prioritization of company initiatives, an impact that can extend far beyond just “the numbers.” In times of uncertainty, this impact is all the more crucial and beneficial.