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.
Bob Kerr, EA, is principal of Kerr Consulting LLC, where he consults with individual firms on tax administration issues. He started his career by spending a dozen years at IRS, mostly in compliance research, and then provided IRS oversight as professional staff on the Senate Finance Committee and served in senior roles, including as chief advocate and IRS/policy spokesman, at the National Association of Enrolled Agents. Follow him on X at @BSG_BobKerr.
Eric Spacek has more than 15 years of insurance risk control experience and joined Church Mutual in January 2020 as Risk Control program manager. He was promoted to his current role in January 2022.
Spacek earned a bachelor's degree in English from Eastern University in St. David's, Pennsylvania, and his juris doctor degree from American University in Washington, D.C.
Spacek earned the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designation. He has also received the Cambridge Certificate in Risk Management for Churches and Schools.
Spacek serves on the board of directors of the Iowa Prayer Breakfast Committee and on the board of directors for the Friends of Youth Justice Initiative in West Des Moines, Iowa.
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.
