Our recent survey of 500 finance leaders* showed that most CFOs now drive, contribute to, or influence their organisation’s digital strategy.
Their fundamental skills in risk management, compliance and reporting, combined with their deep financial knowledge of the business make finance leaders uniquely placed to add invaluable insight to the digital strategy.
Over the next five years, CFOs believe their role will evolve to put greater focus on people and talent development while managing emerging risks, and increased strategic influence and involvement in decision-making.
Before exploring opportunities to drive strategic growth with technology, CFOs need to prioritise defending the business against data security threats, cyber-attacks and AI, and help to build solid foundations around compliance, data management, and skills development.
By investing in these fundamentals first, finance leaders can create a springboard to unleash the business’ full potential.
One-third of businesses don’t provide training for their people on data security and cyber security threats, which could be a contributing factor in some of these data breach cases.
And while many finance leaders said their businesses have some level of preparedness and awareness about cyber incidents and data breaches, most aren’t very confident to manage and respond to them effectively. Less than three in five businesses have an incident response plan for a data breach.
While it’s encouraging that some CFOs do have an incident response strategy, the only way to ensure its efficacy is with constant maintenance to address any new or emerging risks. Concerningly, only around half of businesses that do have an incident response plan have implemented measures to regularly test and update it.
“Experience shows us that prevention is always better than cure, but data breaches are becoming an inevitable part of operating a business. While the responsibility of implementing training protocols, data security measures and incident response plans doesn’t sit directly with CFOs, they can collaborate closely with leaders in HR and tech to share valuable insight into best-practice business protection measures."
Vijay Rathour, Head of Cyber and Digital Investigations
Around three-quarters of CFOs agree that improving their own skills would have a significant impact on the success of the business strategy.
Investing in the skills within their teams and even on the board is just as valuable to the success of the digital strategy. This is a high priority investment area for CFOs, as over 77% know that to execute a strong strategy, they’ll need to access new digital skills that they don’t currently have.
“Some of these skills may be more accessible than CFOs realise. Many organisations have untapped potential in their workforce but don’t have a strategy to effectively identify, nurture, and leverage people’s expertise. They may excel at training new employees but lose momentum when it comes to upskilling existing teams, senior leaders and the board with the knowledge they need.”
Carolyn Hicks, Head of Business Transformation and People Advisory
“Opportunities to upskill are everywhere. One of my top priorities is ensuring my team feels empowered to progress and think differently. We’re always taking steps to identify people with existing digital skills and encouraging them to share their knowledge. Sometimes the skills are already there and just need to be unlocked.”
Tarka Duhalde, Group Finance Controller at Iris Software Group
96% of businesses are investing in finance process automation to improve effectiveness. However, prioritising data quality and infrastructure must come first. Less than half of finance leaders are very confident in their organisation's ability to effectively manage data governance, architecture, quality, volume, ethics, security, and interpretation.
“It’s understandable that finance leaders are enthusiastic about improving efficiencies with finance process automation. But without the data fundamentals in place first, CFOs can’t unlock the full scope of efficiencies from finance automation, or make the best-informed, data-driven decisions needed to shape their organisations’ futures.”
Simon Davidson, Head of Finance Consulting
“Ensuring data quality has become a crucial part of the CFO role. When you’re under the scrutiny of data-hungry stakeholders, you need to feel confident about the answers your data gives to business-critical questions – and to share those answers quickly. Investing in the right digital tools is key for accurate performance reporting.”
This dissatisfaction is motivating CFOs to reassess their technology, but they’re hesitant to take steps to address this due to valid concerns about limited internal resources, difficulties aligning stakeholders, and uncertainties about whether they are truly optimising the use of current systems.
“It’s vitally important that CFOs don’t put-off digital transformation initiatives because of the associated risks. Careful planning and preparation, appropriate resourcing and delivery timelines, and a governance structure tailored to the business will allow programmes to move at pace, while ensuring that risks are identified, controlled and remediated throughout.”
Mark O’Sullivan, Head of Technology and Digital Services
To tackle these priorities, finance leaders tend to have one thing top in mind: generative AI.
A quarter of CFOs say that AI is the most significant risk facing their business over the next year. This in in terms of the new risks AI can create within a business when it’s introduced without due governance, plus the potential for this technology to give competitors valuable advantages.
“Businesses need to fully explore the benefits of new technologies as they emerge, but it’s important that AI adoption isn’t used as a shortcut to gain a competitive advantage. Thoroughly assessing the risks presented by new tech should always be the first step before adoption.”
Chris Williams, Partner, Technology Risk Services
While each organisation and finance leader stands at a unique point in their digital journey, most share the same strategic goals to:
Wherever you are on your journey, there are plenty of digital opportunities to explore. But, making progress doesn’t have to mean changing all systems at once. There are many smaller ways for CFOs to learn how digital and tech can work best in their business, without a heavy investment of time, expertise and budget.
To progress their business’ digital journeys, CFOs can’t go it alone. Bridging the worlds of technology and finance isn’t just a case of introducing new financial systems and launching new projects – it’s about having support from across the business to implement the right skills, culture, and communication. With this commitment from the business, the digital CFO can make great strides to bridge the worlds of technology and finance.
Whatever your current priorities are - from attracting and retaining top talent to digital transformation - our specialist teams are here to support you.
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Two surveys were referenced in this article. The CFO Digital Survey was run in June 2024 and is an anonymous survey of:
The CFO Pulse Survey is an anonymous survey of:
All respondents come from UK-based businesses across a range of sectors and regions.
