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.
Nick Tye is the founder and CEO of Carbon Underwriting. His leadership approach fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation, developing an environment where creativity thrives. Laser focused on merging technology and expertise to drive results, Nick's role at Carbon is the culmination of over two decades in insurance, marked by leveraging his actuarial background and commercial acumen to enhance every facet of the underwriting process. Nick's reputation as a market leader stems from his ability to manage the underwriting of highly profitable international portfolios, even in challenging territories. His holistic understanding of the industry's distribution chain ensures consistently above-average profitability. Beyond technical prowess, Nick's journey from actuarial science to CEO exemplifies the evolution of underwriting in our industry. His visionary leadership, coupled with a relentless pursuit of innovation, positions him as a transformative force in shaping the industry's future.
Sharon Cornelissen if the director of housing at the Consumer Federation of America.
Marcin Nowak is the founder of Decerto, a company specializing in providing software solutions for automating the work of insurance agents. A graduate of computer engineering and postgraduate MBA studies. Creator of the Higson software – a business rules engine. He has been associated with the insurance industry for over 20 years, specializing in automation, the impact of technology on the insurance sector, underwriting, and management. A proponent of the smart insurance technology concept.
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.
