FDs' biggest challenge revealed

Today’s CFO is no longer simply the finance guy. As well as hard number crunching, the modern finance director is a key strategizer, informing vital decisions made by the C-suite.

So how does the modern CFO make important decisions? According to a new survey published by Hubble, finance professionals are largely decisive and data-driven.

Out of more than 300 senior finance professionals surveyed in October 2016, 35% were identified as structured and decisive while 20% were categorised as making fact-based and formal choices.

The rest of the respondents were equally split between leading inclusively, being methodical and warm decision makers or making ad hoc and relaxed choices.

Interestingly, one of the biggest challenges for today’s CFO is communicating with leaders of other departments within the business, closely followed by disconnected data and controlling and reducing costs.

Another major challenge is conquering the month-end close, with less than 1 in 5 respondents saying their department can process it within five days, while 15% admitted spending 20 days or more on it.

To mitigate these hurdles, finance leaders are investing in the future, with more than half of those surveyed using performance management solutions.

Automation in processes seem an inevitable evolution as today’s CFO role broadens and more than 50% of respondents identified as early adopters of technology.

This willingness and appetite for new tech seems to be a defining trait of CFOs under increasing pressure to play a larger role in the decision-making process.