The Evolution of the CFO Role: Why Accounting and Financial Planning & Analysis Are No Longer Enough – CEOWORLD magazine

Over the past decade, there has been an unmistakable evolution in the role of the CFO, a shift that has only intensified with the adoption of new data-centric business technologies and practices.

In the past, organizations searching for a new CFO typically had a choice to make. Did they want a traditional, accounting-focused CFO, or did they prefer one more skilled in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)? If they were fortunate, they might find a unicorn who was experienced in both.

Regardless of which career path they traveled, the CFO was expected to perform several critical roles for the organization: Report on the companys financial present and predict its financial future along with providing intelligence to leadership that would guide topline growth and bottom-line profitability.

In the past, that meant that the best CFOs analyzed the numbers and delivered reports to the business on what the numbers meant.

Today, that is no longer enough.

A new requirement has emerged for CFOs data analytics. Todays CFO must be facile with data, comfortable with powerful computing, and able to harness business intelligence to drive sound decision-making at their organization.

Technology Revolution = CFO Evolution

Four technology-driven factors have dramatically changed the role of the CFO.

This has accelerated the speed with which business decisions are being made. Everything is happening faster transactions, communications, and year-over-year growth. Todays CFO must be creative, tech-savvy, and capable of acting swiftly on emerging business intelligence.

Todays CFO must identify KPIs that matter most across all areas of the business and give true insight into how the business is tracking in achieving those Objectives and Key Results.

Significantly, this enhanced FP&A group reports directly to the CFO. As a result, CFOs now play a central leadership role in shaping their companys digital strategy.

Data Scientists Join Finance Teams

Together, these four forces have led to a dramatic shift in the makeup of corporate finance departments the increasingly common expansion of the FP&A role to include Business Intelligence.

Today, FP&A teams are commonly populated with professionals who have a deep understanding of data science principles, tools and platforms. Savvy CFOs many who arrived to their roles from a traditional accounting or FP&A path know they need business intelligence tools and staff who are experienced in using them.

If an organization hopes to assume full ownership of the data, its finance function needs a team of data scientists along with a powerful self-service platform to enable that. The CFO role has the potential to become the single greatest resource of data and intelligence within a company.

The ideal profile for CFOs and their direct reports is evolving to include this new reality. Going forward, the successful CFO will use data, powerful computing, and business intelligence as the foundation for decision-making. To remain relevant and valuable, CFOs must be masters of both financial and digital strategy.

Written by Greg Selker.

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The Evolution of the CFO Role: Why Accounting and Financial Planning & Analysis Are No Longer Enough - CEOWORLD magazine