Role of CFOs, accountants ‘drastically changing’, says Anaplan
Black swan events in recent years show that CFOs and accountants are now performing a much bigger role in solving business problems, says a software provider.
The pandemic and other black swan events in recent years have demonstrated that the role of CFOs and accountants “has drastically changed in recent times”, according to Alvin Liew, acting managing director, APAC at Anaplan.
Mr Liew said black swan events can result in drastic shifts in demand and create ripple effects that impact a business’s cash flow.
“Notably, the pandemic and resulting global financial crisis caused major disruptions and accountants became a lifeline as businesses fought to stay afloat,” he said.
During the pandemic, 70 per cent of business leaders said their CFOs played a key role in keeping up with regulatory changes and 67 per cent felt they were key in meeting customers’ changing needs as well as facilitating hybrid work.
Accountants also found themselves in a similar position, needing to be extremely mindful of the market conditions and regulatory changes and guiding their businesses or clients on how best to navigate these events financially.
Lessons for finance leaders from the pandemic
Mr Liew said CFOs and accountants now have an important role to play in helping businesses become more agile so they can be prepared for unexpected events in the future.
“CFOs and finance leaders are uniquely positioned to transform and evolve the culture of planning in their organisations by bringing stakeholders from different business units into the process,” he said.
“This will allow these leaders to gain otherwise inaccessible information from these departments, while unlocking full visibility for all parties and instilling more trust and ownership in the planning process. In order to do this effectively, business leaders must foster a culture of winning together, and align the entire business around enterprise-wide targets and goals.”
The recent pandemic also highlights the importance of finance leaders prioritising timely communication between departments and stakeholder management, according to Mr Liew.
“They must take the time to explain the financial implications of a black swan event and explain the necessary plan of action to address the challenges.”
“Businesses will benefit from a command-centre approach in this instance, as it promotes communication and coordination across departments to enable coordinated decision-making.”
A data-driven command-centre approach involves integrating diverse financial information from a variety of sources – both internal and external – into a single automated platform to allow for advanced data analytics capabilities, drive deeper analysis and create dynamic and action-based solutions in real-time, he said.
“With this approach, finance leaders can work in lockstep with other key stakeholders in an organisation (such as operations or legal), to identify early warning signs of potential unplanned disruption, plan for possible contingencies, and act swiftly when change occurs to keep the business moving in the right direction,” said Mr Liew.
“Long gone are the days when static systems and siloed processes can be relied on as the sole source of truth for organisations. These tools require extensive manual intervention and do not reflect real-time market activity, meaning as soon as a change occurs, the data stored in them is outdated and inaccurate.”
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