CFOs and senior finance executives are dealing with a growing number of responsibilities and demands as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.
The report, from consulting firm Protiviti, found that the pandemic has been a wake-up call to finance departments that weren’t already investing, or weren’t investing enough, in cloud-based systems as they have struggled to shift to the remote work environment. Eighty percent of the 1,057 finance leaders surveyed ranked security and privacy of data as a top priority, while 78 percent cited enhanced data analytics, and 72 percent cited cloud-based applications.
Tim Mattke is CEO of MGIC Investment Corporation and Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation. He also serves as chair of U.S. Mortgage Insurers.
Shareen Minor is chief revenue officer, U.S., at Vitesse, financial infrastructure connecting the global insurance ecosystem. With more than 20 years of experience across carriers, TPA operations and PE-backed insurtechs, she leads Vitesse's commercial growth in the United States, bringing deep knowledge of the operational and financial pressures facing the U.S. insurance market.
Most recently, Shareen served as chief revenue officer at Ontellus, a leading provider of health records retrieval and claims intelligence, where she delivered sustained double-digit revenue growth, expanded enterprise client relationships across carriers and law firms, and helped position the business for a successful private equity exit. Before that, she held senior leadership roles including chief commercial officer at Charles Taylor Adjusting and Technical Services, SVP of Casualty Operations at Engle Martin and Associates, and regional vice president at NatGen Premier, where she helped launch and scale a new business unit from zero to $50 million in revenue in 15 months.
Michael Topol is co-founder and co-CEO of MGT Insurance (MGT), an insurer modernizing commercial P&C insurance for businesses and their agents.
Of those respondents who are CFOs and vice presidents of finance, 72 percent ranked cloud-based applications as a top priority to address over the next 12 months. Seventeen percent ranked cloud-based applications as the most important finance priority for their organizations to address, signifying a big jump from the 8 percent of respondents who indicated so in a similar survey by Protiviti last year.
“Having the right technology infrastructure and cloud capabilities is now considered a baseline in order to operate effectively and efficiently and will continue to be as organizations move into a hybrid work environment,” said Chris Wright, managing director and global leader of Protiviti’s Business Performance Improvement practice, in a statement. “COVID-19 disruptions underscored the critical nature of a truly digital finance workforce and companies without advanced technologies and digital processes faced a difficult transition to remote work. We’re now seeing an increasing number of boards and CEOs tap their finance leaders for guidance about whether their organization is allocating enough resources to their technology infrastructure.”
Labor models are changing, in part as a result of the pandemic, with 18 percent of the finance leaders surveyed saying their organizations are relying on managed services providers, while 29 percent are augmenting their staff to handle financial planning and analysis with greater speed and agility.
