Cyber security, inflation the top CFO challenges
Chief financial officers have listed cyber security concerns and managing costs with inflation as two of the key issues in the current market, according to a Hays survey.
Cyber security risks rank high on the list of concerns for CFOs, with 67 per cent rating them high to very high in a recent survey conducted by Hays.
The CFO Viewpoint Report interviewed 280 senior financial leaders including 60 per cent at the C-suite level and the remaining 40 per cent were either director level, senior financial managers or heads of finance.
The report said that artificial intelligence shifted the paradigm of cyber crime and equipped cyber criminals with new and increasingly sophisticated techniques.
“Not only is the number of scams on the rise, but the tactics have also become more advanced, with AI enabling scammers to reach more victims, to robo-dial more phone numbers in a day, to send more emails and text messages to create deep fake videos and to break into systems more easily and efficiently than ever before,” it said.
“However, as the threat of cybercrime increases, defence tactics are also becoming more sophisticated. AI is emerging as a source of threat and a source of protection with smart technology helping to boost cybersecurity controls.”
The Hays report said that CFOs must align risk mitigation with cyber security budgets to maximise protection and return on their investments.
“Cybercrime represents a huge financial threat with the target almost always financial data and finance department personnel,” it said.
Cost control in the inflationary environment was also flagged as a significant issue by CFOs with 63 per cent of CFOs rating cost control in the inflationary environment as a high or very high concern.
“The margin-shrinking impact of inflation is proving to be pervasive and protracted,” the report said.
The report noted that while CFOs had little control over inflation, there were levers they could consider to reduce its impact on their organisations.
“These include cutting back on third-party spending, optimizing operations with technology like Gen AI, tightening cashflow controls and boosting productivity through process improvement,” it said.
“By leveraging technology, finance leaders can also track a range of metrics to better understand the health of their business in a tumultuous economic environment.”
The report showed CFOs were still pessimistic about the economy with only eight per cent indicating they were optimistic about the outlook for the economy.
However, 45 per cent of CFOs were feeling optimistic about their organisation’s growth prospects.
Data capture and use was also considered a top issue with 53 per cent reporting that they were very concerned.
The report highlighted that access to high-quality data was increasingly essential to the creation of new products and services and is a vital ingredient for harnessing new technologies and AI.
“[However], data is often siloed across organisations, buried in legacy systems that don’t communicate effectively, and the ability to extract its value is an ongoing challenge.”
“Building rigorous data governance and management practices in close collaboration with data teams can help CFOs to minimize the risk of errors or inconsistencies and set clear guidelines for how data is collected, stored and accessed.”
Bringing data science skills into finance teams through recruitment or cross-departmental collaboration may also help CFOs capture and use data to enhance innovation and drive better decisions.
About the author
