Something to Consider March 2020 4
The words don’t have any impact anymore. CFO’s are experiencing unprecedented changes in their businesses right now (what an understatement!)
We have talked for years about disruption, the “need for speed” in business and the role of digital.
It just got real.
In volatile times, the CFO and other business leaders need up-to-the minute insight into operations. Not just the raw “data” but the interpretation on volumes, values, trends, exceptions, behaviours, leaders, laggards, that affect revenue, expense, cash, inventory, 3rd party spend, customers, suppliers, partners, business units, regions and people.
Whether or not you thought you were undertaking a transformation, you are now!
In the midst of crisis and policy response, it is worth pausing for thought on these themes:
1) CFO’s need to deeply know data – we need to know what’s happening at the speed of business. We have talked a lot about this, but most businesses are still not here yet…
2) CFO’s need to take security seriously – this was already an issue, but living through the largest business continuity test the world has ever seen is making the situation more acute…
3) CFO’s need finance to be a technology proving ground – we will have to try new things quicker than we planned, probably more of the fast, focussed things and less of the audacious, massive things for a while…
4) CFO’s need a great transformation team – teams that execute, leaders that don’t prevaricate, managing change, creating new habits.
5) CFO’s need to be a devil’s advocate – challenging received wisdom, risk vs performance, speed vs scale, global vs local, process vs task, cut vs continue, invest vs delay and so on.
You can read the source article here recently published in Forbes, and written by Uwe Erdtmann of SAP.