How CFOs can fuel the growth of the digital enterprise
September 11, 2018
RESEARCH REPORT
In brief
In brief
- CFOs are becoming powerful digital stewards leveraging data to drive value, improve efficiency and empower CEOs with strategic insights.
- Learn how CFOs can fully harness the power of data to overcome barriers, transform their role and work alongside CEOs as a key partner.
- The success of future finance leaders depends on today’s CFOs evolving their hiring practices.
Today's CEOs are looking toward organizational transformation to find new, innovative ways to turn insights into action. Who among C-suite executives can help them oversee this enterprise-wide overhaul?
The CFO.
Finance executives have emerged as powerful digital stewards, using data to drive greater efficiency and foster new, digitally-driven business models that help evolve the enterprise. With a unique bird’s-eye view of their companies, CFOs are looking beyond the traditional boundaries of the finance function and collaborating with CEOs to develop data- and insight-driven strategies—creating sustainable growth, long-term value and profound change.
And that’s only the beginning. By 2020, the finance function as we know it will be transformed by CFO innovation as talent is reskilled and deployed throughout the business in a new strategic capacity.
81%
of CFOs see identifying and targeting areas of new value across the business as one of their main responsibilities.
77%
of CFOs believe it is within their purview to drive business-wide operational transformation.
So how did the CFO ascend from accountant to business partner to the CEO’s most trusted advisor?
Our study takes a deeper dive into the dynamic new role of CFOs, unpacking the challenges they face and the ways in which they can leverage technology, skills and relationships to position their companies for growth.
"In virtually every company we look at, the CFO is becoming the second most important C-suite executive. An effective leadership team depends on the CEO and CFO being a great double act."
– DAVID AXSON, Managing Director – Accenture Strategy and CFO and Enterprise Value, UKI
Next steps
As routine tasks are automated, the CFO will create more meaningful and impactful roles for finance professionals, from leading digitalization transformations to developing new ways of mining data for growth-driven insights.
The CFO is in an elevated position, serving as an innovator and a disruptor who can harness data to unleash new value. Now is the time for all CFOs to wield the power of digital and secure their organization’s growth objectives.
About the research
Our research explores the transforming—and transformational—role of the CFO to uncover trends, obstacles and best practices for organizations ready to pivot to the new.
700+
finance and C-suite leaders surveyed, including 50 CFOs, plus more than 200 up-and-coming finance professionals from countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Australia, Brazil, Spain and Singapore.
9
industries covered, including banking, consumer goods, insurance, retail, oil and gas, metals and mining, utilities, high tech, and communications and media.
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