More Banking CFOs Take Lead Role in Innovation, Accenture Says

A recent survey by Accenture found chief financial officers are taking on expanded roles in helping banks become data-centric and better equipped, in terms of technology, for what will likely be a volatile future. In its report on the survey, The CFO Reimagined: Banking , Accenture said three in four banking CFOs are “confident” their teams can help businesses adopt a predictive, data-centric mindset. The global professional services company found that 77% of surveyed CFOs are already helping to drive “business-wide transformation” and that 74% of CFOs are already using digital technology to make their businesses “more efficient.” “CFOs can identify and target areas of new value, both enterprise-wide and across the extended ecosystem,” the report said. “They can find the right technologies to efficiently extract and leverage that value.” Solutions can include artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud computing, although the survey also found 40% of respondents agreeing that resistance to non-human colleagues is a barrier to adopting these technologies. In a statement, Alan McIntyre, Accenture's senior managing director for banking, said banks are “between two worlds” right now. “The CFO will perform an increasingly difficult balancing act between managing risk and unlocking new value,” McIntyre said. “It’s difficult, and there are risks ahead, but data and the broader adoption of digital offer an extraordinary amount of opportunity.” The Accenture report recommends CFOs champion the cloud, for agility, cost reduction and better analytics; embody a smart-tech culture, where employees are comfortable with automated tools; find new answers to the talent question, by pooling resources across the enterprise to benefit from existing talent, or acquiring start-ups; and embrace innovation, by pushing to expand the role of innovation in order to create value. In addition to ever-changing compliance requirements and increased competition from fintechs, Accenture said the banking industry should also prepare for complex and volatile conditions in the form of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, increased global credit risk, and renewed interest in subprime. In this environment, Accenture said, respondents are finding banking CFOs “exerting greater influence than ever before.” “They are predicting the future rather than reporting the past, creating new value from data, enabling digital transformation across the enterprise, and pivoting their workforce to align with tomorrow’s business,” the report said. Three quarters of respondents said they, personally, are best placed to pivot their organizations to a new era of digitally-enabled growth, and 82% said identifying and targeting areas of new value across the enterprise is a major focus of their work, but just 39% believe finance should be playing a leading role in businesswide value-discovery initiatives relating to company data. A recent whitepaper by the Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity & Technology Program said every company is now a tech company and C-Suite leaders roles have changed, or must change, accordingly. It cited a 2017 study by consulting firm Korn Ferry, which found the most critical skills for a CFO’s success are now general management, at 27%, and strategy, at 26%. Meanwhile, traditional skills like controllership and risk and compliance were considered the most critical to success by just 7% and 2% of senior executives respectively. “Companies today have little need to run much of the technology they once ran — and leaders like CFOs need to be thoughtful about identifying business units and cost centers that are strengths and outsourcing those that aren’t,” the whitepaper said. “These conversations can be difficult — and disruptive — but are critical to success today.”

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More Banking CFOs Take Lead Role in Innovation, Accenture Says

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