Smart Financial Operations: The CFO’s Most Powerful Asset

As chief financial officers (CFOs) continue to grapple with ongoing business disruptions from COVID-19, a new report from Accenture finds that finance leaders need more real-time data to move from measurement to value creation.

Accenture’s new report surveyed 450 CFOs and other financial leaders at companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue. A key finding is that while nearly all respondents (99%) believe that using real-time data is critical to responding to threats such as COVID-19 or a recession, only 16% have achieved the required data scale.

When asked about the top areas of concern for their business in 2021, CFOs most frequently cited rising interest rates (49%), pandemic disruption (47%), economic recession (47%) and recruiting and retaining the right talent (42%). Given the complexity of these challenges, the majority (68%) believe that real-time financial models - leveraging AI, machine learning algorithms and real-time, diverse data sets - are critical to enabling better business decisions.

Even during the pandemic, respondents said they will spend an average of 33% of their budgets on building real-time operations and processes this year. Large U.S. companies (i.e., those with at least $10 billion in annual revenue) appear even more committed to this capability, investing at least 50% of their budgets in this area. About two-fifths of respondents (44%) plan to make nearly all of their financial processes and operations real-time within the next three years.

While the benefits are well known, finance executives also face various challenges in implementing these processes. For example, real-time scenario planning ranks highest among CFO priorities for 2021 (34%), but 58% of respondents are concerned about identifying or hiring the right talent to implement this capability. While about a quarter of respondents (24%) see real-time insights as the highest priority for their company's finance function, about two-fifths (43%) cite technology as the top barrier to implementation.

199IT.com Original translation from: Accenture. Please do not reprint without authorization.