Pressures on CFOs increase with digital

Pressures on CFOs have increased in the last decade and especially during the pandemic to not only be responsible for the business's financial outcomes but also to manage governance, risk, digital and strategic decision making.

Digital Nation Australia spoke to Neal Hawkins, CFO at fintech MoneyMe about the expectations that have increased for chief financial officers.

According to Hawkins, the role often crosses over with the CEO, CRO, and COO when it comes to responsibilities, and businesses are expecting CFOs to do more, at speed.

“Go back a few years, a normal month in close for a set of numbers might be a few weeks. Now people are looking to have it done in a few days. Increasingly are saying, ‘Well, why can't you get it done in a few hours?’,” said Hawkins.

“There's that expectation that things need to be efficient, things need to be effective. Because the technology is there and increasingly CFOs are delivering and leveraging that, as a CFO is 'if these guys are getting it done on working day X, Y, Z, well why can’t you?'"

Leveraging digital technologies to work under pressure has made the CEO role more fun Hawkins said. 

“It makes it more enjoyable because there's still opportunities often to continually transform and improve the processes. But what that ultimately does is free you up for the value add. It frees you up to support leadership. It frees you up with the PLA, the strategy with the analytics to help the business become a commercial success,” he said.

“It's a role that's becoming more important because of that need to focus on the commercial outcomes.”

Digital has also allowed CFOs to gain greater visibility over the company as a result of data analytics and dashboarding.

According to Hawkins, these tools allow CFOs to make better and quicker decisions.

“We get the right analytics at the right time, real-time, and the information exactly what we need. It means that you can get to the substance of what you need to, get the basic information, understanding a lot quicker, a lot more efficiently,” he said.