“Modern finance leaders are architects of value creation, not just guardians of cost”.

A recent survey finds that CFOs are emerging as the architects of strategy and transformation.

Enter the Chief Value Officer (CVO), reflecting finance’s role in total value creation.

“The evolving role of the CFO” by Amanda Akien in World Finance reflects some of the trends we have discussed previously.

There has been a noticeable shift as Finance leaders have increased their role as catalysts for change across their businesses and are now taking ownership of digital transformation projects.

“The finance function provides the discipline, governance, and data rigour to make digital investment deliver measurable results”. 

“The CFO’s role is not only to secure financing and monitor performance, but to challenge existing business processes and create the atmosphere for transformation”.

It provides a 360-degree view of the business, a visibility opportunity that is central to value creation.

The article really echoes the sentiments of Michael van der Ploeg, VP of Global Business Services AND Corporate Controller at Amway, when he shared that “we have changed the way we talk about business processes and value”.

Michael describes;

• Creating an integrated, collaborative operating model
• Focussing on “end to end” business processes, not just the “silo” activities and services operated and delivered by functions or GBS.
• Nurturing the mindset, skills and habits required to drive stakeholder engagement and better business outcomes
• The need to translate the different perspectives across the business to find and create common interest and genuine business value.
• Aligning strategic ambition with delivering in the short term.
• Combining the necessary deep understanding of the mechanics of the business processes and culture (‘Inside-Out’ thinking) with the ability to talk the language of stakeholders across the business and define together ‘what good looks like’ in their eyes (‘Outside-In’ thinking).
• Developing a ‘Think like a CFO’ culture to focus on real return on investment, P&L impact, working capital and cash flow. 

This focus on genuine business outcomes, not just internal efficiencies, enhances stakeholder engagement, customer experience and P&L impact.

“We have changed the way we talk about business processes and value”.

You can read the article referenced above: “The evolving role of the CFO” in World Finance here . . . 

You can explore how Finance leaders are enhancing their 360-degree visibility of the business, it’s end-to-end processes and activities to drive greater value, here . . . 

You can get further information on the approach to develop and enable an end-to-end process oriented GBS capability, here . . .  

You can view the 15 minute conversation with Michael here, courtesy of SSON . . .

Thanks for reading . . . .