The CFO’s changing role: problem-solving, tech and leadership — report (2024)

“I don’t necessarily have anxiety with the role of the CFO changing. I think it is a really exciting time, and having more of an opportunity for CFOs to be seen as a combination of stable, steady, guiding custodians, but with a really strong strategic, visionary mindset.”

Jacqui Cartin, executive vice president and group financial controller at Sage Group, producer of enterprise resource planning (ERP) financial software that primarily serves small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), knows the CFO role is changing, but embraces the opportunity it presents for her and like-minded finance chiefs.

Her view of the rapidly changing role matches the findings of her company’s current research report, “Secrets of Successful CFOs,” where 96% of those surveyed believe the role will change in the next three years, and 89% have seen their job evolve even from a year ago.

“There are two real things that make me nervous [about business outlook],” Cartin told CFO. “You’ve obviously got economic headwinds that we know are a challenge for our business and for all the small businesses we support... And we as finance organizations need to make sure we are constantly horizon-gazing and saying, ‘What needs to happen for us to be in trouble? What can we do to future-proof our [company]? Where’s the next ‘black swan’ event coming from?”

According to survey findings, CFOs and finance leaders are aware of what skills are going to be necessary to meet these challenges, and, as noted, most understand these skills are going to evolve and become more demanding in the near future.

A large part — 85% of those surveyed, to be exact — believe this change will involve strategy and counsel for the overall business, with 60% stating their insights will be essential to company-wide business strategy, and 57% say they must be more collaborative with the C-suite and the board. Finance leaders are, on average, spending over four hours per day on non-traditional CFO activities, which include technology considerations, talent management and strategic planning. Available working hours are rapidly decreasing.

“It’s all a matter of prioritization. When I look at my calendar in a given week, if I’m spending most of my time trying to solve data problems and getting access to information, that’s a bad way [to do the job]”, Cartin said.

Instead, CFOs must prioritize the finance strategy, as the report indicates 69% of respondents said their biggest challenge is in managing a constantly increasing number of responsibilities. “Where do I need to affect the change to ensure that three years from now, my predecessor is not going to be having the same problems? How do we build a scalable, resilient finance environment that doesn’t exacerbate the problems of the past? This is where the touch points between the finance organization and the broader commercial organization are absolutely critical,” she said.

Prioritization of responsibilities is the baseline, and the rise in technology solutions for business leaders — of which Cartin is both a provider and a user at Sage — is the way finance leaders can leverage their time most effectively, while also addressing the most commonly identified challenge CFOs face.

“The war for talent” is what keeps Cartin up at night, and how she can keep high-quality, best graduates coming through the door to sustain the necessary level of innovation.

“I run a team of people globally ... five years ago, I had people lining up outside my door to do the more manual, A/P and A/R types of jobs. Today, every time we’ve got somebody who leaves my A/P team in Atlanta, for example, it’s really hard to fill those roles,” Cartin said. And for SMBs, the challenge is even more difficult, as they may not have the same kind of brand recognition or salary offerings as Sage.

The survey indicates that most finance leaders (81%) know technology affords them to focus on more valuable tasks, and 74% say over half of their financial processes are now automated. And 79% believe artificial intelligence (AI) can revolutionize how the organization functions and this specific technology is crucial for competitiveness.

One of the most significant ways the usage of AI and automation help is in the collection of data and performance metrics. Survey findings indicate this is perhaps the largest gap between where CFOs want to be in their knowledge of the business and where they are, with 86% stating they understand the importance of metrics, but only 45% are actively collecting them.

“A couple of years ago, [automation and technology deployment] was a sexy thing to do. But today, it’s turned into something that is a necessity for all businesses because, frankly, the people who do this type of work no longer exist. People want to do more value-added things,” Cartin said.

But, to enable finance teammates to embrace the technology, there is an inverse relationship between the upskilling knowledge around the technology and the lowering of the anxiety the new tech can bring. “When we started to look at basic things like OCR capabilities and A/P automation, we came up against resistance from the teams... they viewed it initially as, ‘Is this going to put my role at risk? Am I effectively going to help you make me redundant? Are you saying my job is so easy a robot could do it?

“But, we have not made people redundant. We have redeployed them into other areas of the finance organization, which meant they can go add value in different ways,” she said. This redeployment with reliance on the technologies is in part what helps Cartin’s company avoid the threat of shelfwareso the investment doesn’t go to waste.

Part of the offering Cartin and CFOs can offer when the company strategy, team and technology is aligned is career growth that directly affects the talent pool drain. Part of it, according to Cartin, is to move past the “number cruncher” impression and highlight many of the additional responsibilities CFOs must now own.

“I look after our M&A integration, I spend lots of time in corporate finance ... I talk to customers.” All of this, Cartin said, is what sets her up to be a strong leader. Finance leaders have an opportunity to rebrand the role highlighting these attributes.

Did anything surprise Cartin in the survey findings? “The thing I’m always interested to see is the extent to which confidence is cited as a prerequisite to being a CFO,” she said, as 77% of those surveyed said robust confidence is crucial. “But I interpret that is the confidence to admit that you don’t know everything, that you’re not necessarily the expert in everything.”

What drives Cartin forward in her role is that she doesn’t have all the answers, but “I need to go and talk to lots of different people to help me to the answers. What I do know is I’m super curious, and I’m really, really excited to go and dig. And I think this is exactly the feeling so many of our customers have,” she said.

The Sage “Secrets of Successful CFOs” report was a survey of 1,221 senior finance leaders, 170 (14%) of which are CFOs. The respondents hailed from the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Australia, Germany, South Africa and Spain.