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.
H. Adam Holt is the co-founder and CEO of Asset-Map, a financial technology firm dedicated to creating engaging visual communication tools used throughout the customer and advisor journey and now used by thousands of advisors worldwide and over a million end-consumers.
He has been a financial advisor for over 25 years and is known for his early adoption of technology to build trend-setting client experiences.
Angela Nelson is the VP of operations and executive director of clinical services at RethinkCare.
Greg Freeman is the founder and partner of Wellington Wealth Strategies.
He previously served as the founder and CEO of TrustWealth Strategies, which merged with the Wellington Group to form Wellington Wealth Strategies. Before founding TrustWealth, Greg solidified his reputation as a perennial Blue Chip and Top of Council producer for MassMutual. His experience includes a more than decade-long tenure as a partner and wealth advisor at WestPoint Financial Group.
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.
