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.
John Samuels is the founder and CEO of Wellworth, a national health care advisory firm based in New York.
With over two decades in senior health care leadership, he has expertise in health care operations, strategy and innovation. Previously, he held leadership roles at North Shore LIJ and Mount Sinai Beth Israel. He has been recognized for his community service, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was honored on the Forbes Next 1000 list in 2021.
Diane Bartoli is the SVP of EdAdvisory Services at Bright Horizons and a member of the Bright Horizons Executive Committee, overseeing branded offerings EdAssist and College Coach – which leverages a range of offerings, including tuition reimbursement, student loan repayment, financial college advising and more to help employers combat employee attrition and fill critical labor gaps, while enabling employees to realize their fullest potential.
Germaine Cota, CPA, is senior vice president of finance & accounting at BILL.
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.
