A dynamic business environment and changing regulatory requirements force the CFO into a tight spot. To address those requirements, you have to transform towards a best-in-class CFO function. Our 10 MUST HAVES for highly effective CFOs enable you to run a high performance finance organization and to shape the corporate future.
To maximize their effectiveness, CFOs must set up and run their organization in a high performing manner to meet current and future challenges. The following levers are critical to success.
The CFO leverages a hybrid organization with a highly qualified workforce and next-level technological capabilities to provide a holistic view on performance at any time. The organization can quickly react to new challenges and leverage its full digitalization potential.
This enables the finance function to realize short-cycle improvements by striving for quick and flexible implementations. Fast iterative solutions replace the ideal of perfection.
The CFO is the corporate risk and regulation navigator that ensures transparency to keep pace with dynamic risks and regulatory requirements.
A Governance, Risk and Compliance organization is embedded across the organization with clear central guidance on how to consistently identify, assess and mitigate risks while managing the increasingly complex hyper regulatory environment.
The CFO pushes the digitalization beyond pure ERP transformation, using the SAP S/4HANA implementation as a strong foundation for further initiatives introducing standardized platforms to integrate financial and non-financial data in a consistent data model.
By leveraging and introducing efficient tool support such as chatbots under a high degree of automation, the data will support the daily life not only of finance but the entire value chain.
The CFO enables the leadership team to further base their decision-making on integrated data hubs and provides analytics facilitated by artificial intelligence.
As business partner, the CFO enables reliable management decisions and therefore guides the company to operational and commercial success by providing predictive models for all possible future scenarios.
The CFO develops a best-in-class finance team by differentiating its finance roles and anticipating new skills. Strong business acumen and technological competence are constantly evolving in line with business requirements.
An inspiring working culture will leverage fluctuation and ensure excellence in the war for talents.
CFOs are much more than the “financial conscience" of the corporation; they play a critical role in shaping the corporate future. CFOs can proactively drive the further development of their corporation in five key areas:
Supported by powerful information systems, an effective steering model and lean structures and processes, the CFO masters volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The CFO remains vigilant at all times, addresses critical vulnerabilities proactively and reacts and adapts flexibly to new challenges.
The CFO is connected to both the business and the customers and hence always up to the issues. These are resolved while keeping the long-term targets of the company in mind.
The CFO relentlessly pushes for continuous improvement and drives adaptation and development of structures and processes in an ever-changing world. The role is not limited to initiating improvement measures; it also includes support, monitoring and guidance as a "change agent".
The CFO enforces lean structures and fosters end-to-end thinking and acting across organizational silos for the company to excel.
The CFO actively drives company value creation and is no longer just a mere administrator of the company's data & figures. The CFO ensures business growth and drives organic as well as inorganic growth via M&A processes.
At the same time, the focus is on finding the right balance between resource savings and cost optimization, as well as the increased requirements of an increasingly "green world”. Diversity, sustainability and social responsibility, as fully integrated corporate values, are an important factor for decision-making in respect of value creation and growth.
The CFO proactively sets the topics for the top management agenda. Considered as thought leader and indispensable business partner, the CFO guides discussion and decisions towards the crucial topics for the company – if necessary, taking over the role of “devil’s advocate”.
The CFO is the go-to person for better informed and conscious decision-making, in addition to well-founded recommendations.
The CFO plays a vital role in ensuring corporate resilience and fostering integration across organizations by breaking through existing silos.
Being responsible, the CFO provides a holistic view on the vulnerabilities across the entire business ecosystem and develops from a collector of risks towards a modeler of risk scenarios. This includes an understanding of the risk landscape, what scenarios this could cause, how this would affect corporate objectives and what must be done to be better prepared.
In addition, it is the responsibility of the CFO to ensure financial security and stability by smart activities on the capital market.
Horváth has been a reliable and competent partner for CFOs for more than 40 years. We would also be happy to accompany you in your transformation to a highly effective best-in-class CFO function. Our experts look forward to working with you.
