CFOs Play a Major Role in Digital Investment Decisions Across the Enterprise

The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) are playing a critical role in driving digital disruption across the organization, according to new research from Accenture. Today’s CFOs oversee more than just the finance function and are now integral players in directing enterprise-wide digital investments and managing their economic outcomes and impacts.

The research report, The CFO Reimagined: From Driving Value to Building the Digital Enterprise, finds that CFOs have expanded beyond their traditional finance roles into areas that have broader consequences for the whole organization. More than eight in 10 CFOs (81 percent) see identifying and targeting areas of new value across the business as one of their main responsibilities. Three quarters (77 percent) believe it is within their purview to drive business-wide operational transformation.

“The CFO role has evolved over the last several years, from accountant to business partner to a strategic advisor across the entire enterprise, becoming the economic guardian of planned outcomes for digital investments ,” said Steve Culp, senior managing director at Accenture and global head of the company’s Finance & Risk practice. “In addition, CFOs are fast becoming the digital stewards of their organizations, leveraging predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to better interpret data for key business decisions that drive value, improve efficiency and enable strategy beyond the borders of the finance function.”

CFO as the Digital Investment Sherpa
CFOs are emerging as drivers of the digital agenda, with 77 percent heading up efforts to improve performance through adoption of digital technology, and 77 percent also exploring how disruptive technologies could benefit the entire organization and the business eco-system.

Not only are CFOs carrying out their own tasks faster and better through automation, they’re also increasingly ushering in the “digitalization” of other functions and finding new ways to use technology to change business models and open new revenue streams.