The Finance benchmarking network for CFOs and executives in Finance

Effectively increasing the performance of Finance

The CFO Panel is one of the largest CFO communities and benchmarking databases in the German-speaking world. It was founded in 2003 by Horváth and currently includes more than 1,000 companies from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland primarily. The CFO Panel focuses on the Finance department. It puts emphasis on significant trends, challenges, areas of responsibility, and activities of Financial directors or Finance management (CFO area). The core elements are continuous benchmarking with regard to quantitative and qualitative data as well as an annual CFO study. This study focuses on current topics and questions within the Finance department.

The goal of the CFO Panel is to go far beyond simply obtaining comparative figures. We want to effectively increase the performance of the entire Finance department. The state-of-the-art benchmark database enables you to enter into comparative discussions. This allows you to understand differences, work out trends, and identify innovations. You can also enter into a non-binding dialog with our experts within the community and discuss current concerns and individual topics as well as potential optimization measures.

Data is collected online throughout the entire year. We request that every member company update their data annually. The basis for this data collection is a unified process model for Finance, controlling, and accounting. This model is coordinated with renowned institutions and work groups and enables you to compare companies of various structures and industries. Every company independently decides the area on which they will share information. This process reviews:

Strategy, vision, and mission
Organizational structure and resource allocation
Process workflows
Particular KPIs
Information on the IT landscape as well as the expertise and skills of the finance department

The results are evaluated individually and provide you a direct comparison with the Panel average. The benchmarking report is available for download in your online company portal once you have registered and filled out the questionnaire.

Regular CFO Panel meetings reinforce the network-like character of the group and its opportunities for exchange. You can discuss select results and valuable best practices with other members in great detail. There are also presentations on new trends in Controlling/FP&A and Accounting.

CFO Study 2024

CFOs see huge potential in the transition to a data-driven company – but there is still a long way to go

Times are getting rougher for CFOs. According to our new CFO-Study 2024, every 4th finance executive expects business to deteriorate. This is bad timing as the transformation towards a “data-driven company” has not made major progress in most companies in 2023. Whereas smart dashboards and other “low hanging fruits” of digitalization (e.g. RPA) are more and more established, not a single new technology with higher complexity, such as PredictiveFC, Maschine Learning or Generative AI is even partly implemented in the majority of finance departments.

Over 150 top finance executives from different countries around the world were asked about their expectations for 2024 and their current transformation status.

Click here for the study!