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November 5, 2015 By Samuel Dergel Leave a Comment

5 CFO Opportunities for the Future of Finance

Earlier this week I shared a new research report by CFO Publishing sponsored by SAP with some insights on the Future of Finance.

Thack Brown is general manager and global head of Line-of-Business Finance at SAP, and I had the opportunity to speak with him about the report. I have had the opportunity to speak with Thack numerous times over the years, including for my book, and I continue to find his perspectives and insights relevant, useful and enjoyable.

I would like to share 5 points that Thack shared with me that I thought CFOs should hear, listen to, and think about further. (This is an excerpt from my conversation with Thack and has been edited for clarity).

1) This is a platform play at the end of the day.

Companies in the general market are currently revaluating their platforms, their ERP, their financial systems, all of that stack, and saying “it’s all changing”. It’s time for me to place the next bet that will be my platform for the next 10-15 years.

2) Know that the CFO opportunity is a big one.

CFOs need to be ready to make the step out of the finance field, into a more comprehensive involvement understanding of the entire workings of the company. CFOs need to expand their role and take on more responsibilities.

3) You are not alone.

Finance professionals are usually challenged when it comes to networking. We tend to be so overworked and focused on our profession that sometimes we can fall into that trap of believing that our problems are only our problems. Talk to your peers. Network, brainstorm and problem solve. This is a valuable resource and should not be overlooked.

4) The next big thing.

Automation. This has been talked about in the finance world forever. The need to move more effort out of the back office and automate it so you can spend more time in the front office. Move past the shared services environment to full automation. The back office of the future will be a just a few highly skilled experts handling, enabling and ultimately evolving the automation.

5) Advice to midsize companies and their CFOs.

Mid-size companies need to keep an eye on the technology transformations of automation and simplification, because this may be not their opportunity to catch up the big boys, but actually leap-frog them entirely. As an example, they could skip the entire shared services phase.

So, CFOs, what do you think?

November 2, 2015 By Samuel Dergel Leave a Comment

Good news CFOs: The Future of Finance Looks Bright (But Only if you Plan and Act)

A new research report released today by CFO Research and sponsored by SAP shows that while Finance has improved a lot over the past years, there is plenty of opportunity to Finance to deliver more value to the organization.

The report, Thriving in the Digital Economy: Four Reasons Why Finance Is Excited About the Future has four key findings that CFOs, senior finance executives and board members will find of significant interest:

Finance professionals are embracing their influence in their enterprises—and looking forward to a bright future as their profession evolves.

The good news is that finance professionals are more influential than ever in their organization, and have opportunities to go beyond core traditional areas of ‘old’ finance. The biggest challenge with this opportunity comes from ensuring that talent with leadership potential in finance can grow beyond the core additional areas.

The organizational scope of the finance function—already broad— continues to expand to encompass risk management, IT, M&A, and other key functions.

Again, as Finance becomes the central organizational address for all administrative and support functions within an organization, can the talent planning match this need?

Finance teams will be challenged to fulfill their core performance management mandate in the face of rapid change and greater business complexity.

High value-add within finance can only happen with the right people, processes and technologies in place, especially as business gets more complex and change continues at a faster pace.

Finance professionals see the rising wave of digitalization and automation as the key to their ability to partner with the business to manage performance.

In a conversation with Thack Brown, general manager and global head of Line-of-Business Finance at SAP, he said that the impact of technology opportunities (digitization and automation) will radically change how the transactional part of finance is being managed, even by those following current best practices.

Stay tuned as I will be sharing parts of my interview with Thack Brown. The insights he offered were fascinating, and combined with this report, provides excellent food for thought for the CFO who is looking to be the best business partner possible to their organization.

July 30, 2015 By Samuel Dergel 1 Comment

CFOs: How the IoT (Internet of Things) Impacts You and Your Organization

Anyone reading news in the past year has come across the words IoT (or Internet of Things). As senior finance leader in your organization, this trend has an impact on you, your peers, and your organization.

The question you may have asked yourself but were not confident enough to ask others was “So What?”

My colleagues Jim McFadzean and Andrew Lane at Stanton Chase recently released a whitepaper called: The Internet of Things: Adapting Corporate Structure to Reflect the Connectivity of IoT.

This whitepaper allows you to learn more about what IoT is all about, and the impact it has on the CFO as well as the organization.

In this 11 page report, McFadzean and Lane discuss the impact of IoT on the C-Suite. Here is what they report on the impact on the Chief Financial Officer:

Bruce MacLean, CFO at Infomart Data Centers, already finds the Internet of Things to be integral in his daily management. “Our accounting, payroll, HR, phone systems – all of our administrative and financial functions are connected and supported via the Internet.”

The CFO will need to adopt an offensive approach in order to keep finance and accounting information secure in the age of the Internet of Things. The data acquired via an organization’s internet-enabled devices will be new, limitless, and contextually raw. Such a wealth of information has the potential to be reconfigured and mined for trends that offer insight into an organization’s business activities, be it customer purchasing habits, production information, or shipping histories. The CFO will need to work closely with the CIO and CSO to insure the security not just of financial records, but of any data that could be used by an unscrupulous third party to gain an understanding of an organization’s dealings.

CFOs:

Are you aware of the impact that IoT will have on the future of your career and your organization?
What will you be doing about it?

1) This is a platform play at the end of the day.

2) Know that the CFO opportunity is a big one.

3) You are not alone.

4) The next big thing.

5) Advice to midsize companies and their CFOs.

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