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?