Traditional tasks, regulators hamper CFOs aspirations

Chief financial officers aspire to become a strategic partner to the chief executive officers but they continue to spend majority of their time on traditional tasks such as controlling costs...

Chief financial officers aspire to become a strategic partner to the chief executive officers but they continue to spend majority of their time on traditional tasks such as controlling costs, reporting and advising on tax and treasury matters, according to a study.

The study, based on a global survey of 286 senior executives — 53 per cent of whom came from organisations with over $1 billion in annual revenue — was conducted by KPMG International.

A majority of the 123 CFOs participated in the survey say that nowadays they are also spending a part of their time communicating with the organisation’s shareholders, who are shaken by the corporate scandals. One CFO interviewed for the report says that she spends 20 per cent of her time communicating with the organisation’s shareholders.

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In addition to the traditional tasks, regulators have also played a havoc on CFOs aspiration of becoming a strategic partner to the CEO. Sixty-two per cent of executives in large organisations said regulatory compliance has absorbed time that could have been spent profitably elsewhere.

However, these executives expect their regulatory compliance work is going to go up in three years. Almost 80 per cent of the CFOs at average performing companies in the survey see cost control as a major part of finance’s role whereas only 64 per cent of top performing companies cite cost control as a key focus and they tend to spend more time on decision support acitivity.

Finance organisations also find themselves competing for talent and the profile of the finance professional is also changing, according to the survey, which had companies with an EBITDA average growth rate of over 10 per cent in the last three years.

About 55 per cent of companies say they plan to recruit new finance employees in the next two years, but 47 per cent also say that this will be one of the bigger obstacles to transform their organisations. A new recruit is expected to have more sophisticated analytical techniques and to be a creative problem solver for which leading finance functions are providing excellent training and career development opportunities, combined with rotational assignments, the study says.