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.
Andrew Lubrano is a research principal at Gartner. As part of the controller research team in Gartner's finance practice, he works with controllers and their teams to conduct in-depth research on their pressing challenges.
Dr. Kollins, chief medical officer at Akili, is a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of North Carolina and spent more than 20 years on the faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, where he maintains an adjunct faculty appointment.
Gino Stella, a Consultant at Capco in Tampa, FL, brings valuable experience leading annuity and life insurance carriers, property and casualty insurance carriers, and investment banks. In his recent position at a top annuity insurer, he facilitated collaborative efforts to streamline training and onboarding processes. Gino excels in understanding client needs, delivering ongoing support, and optimizing onboarding procedures. He has efficiently collaborated with both internal and external clients to deliver products, collect data, prepare reports, and create financial models.
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.
