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.
Ross Sinclair is founder and CEO at EIP. Ross has over four decades of experience in the insurance industry and founded EIP over 20 years ago. As one of the founders of EIP he has helped transition the core business from delivering managed services on device insurance to its position today as a market-leading software provider. Before EIP, Ross was on the insurance board of Carphone Warehouse.
Simon Leung PharmD, RPh is VP, head of pharmacy at Conner Strong & Buckelew, one of America's largest and most respected insurance brokerage, employee benefits and risk management consulting firms. He oversees all facets of the firm's pharmacy business, driving cutting-edge pharmacy solutions to optimize pharmacy benefit strategy for employers and plan sponsors. Additionally, he actively works with PBMs, coalitions and other industry partners.
Carl E. Sera is a chartered market technician (CMT) and the managing principal of Sera Capital Management, a fee-only registered investment advisor based in Annapolis, Maryland, specializing in tax-efficient real estate exit planning, 1031 exchanges, Delaware statutory trusts and 721 UPREIT structures. He has more than 19 years of experience in financial services.
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.
