The biggest challenges facing CFOs in 2023

Our organisation needs to address the challenges posed by legacy data in 2023. The nimbleness demanded from the business amplifies the need for current, accurate data to support decision-making. 

Unifying data for analysis eliminates pulling it from disconnected databases and spreadsheets. At the same time, a single data source also increases the speed of reporting and reduces the inefficiency and errors inherent in manual processes.

We still have a way to go here, the level of finance tasks we have automated today is well below the estimates of potentially going up to 80%.   There are a couple of reasons for this, personally I am not fully knowledgeable enough to fully optimise technology right now.

Additionally, my teams worry about the change, although my role here is to show that automating routine tasks frees the finance team up to do more creative work, while the insights with automated intelligence will help the business succeed.

The shift to a Hybrid workforce provides both opportunities and challenges.  This has caused us to rethink our investments in physical office space. The potential cost savings and returns on technology investments, together with benefits for employees, favour continued Hybrid work. 

For our teams we need to ensure that balance is maintained between the blurring lines of work and home life, we must also ensure opportunities for in person “in the office” collaboration and innovation are encouraged.

I play a big part, along with the rest of the board, to ensure we lead innovation within our organisation. A top challenge is to continue the pace of change and innovation that enabled companies to survive the economic climate of the past few years, enabling us to capture future opportunities.

My team and I need to use our intimate knowledge of business performance to adopt financial innovation in a way that drives growth. Tools like predictive analytics, dashboards and key performance indicators will play important roles in helping us identify opportunities early so they we can direct operations to adapt quickly..

The macroeconomic and political climate means I am constantly focused on tax policy and regulatory risk.  Any changes in international taxation may have a significant impact on operations, as will changes to international trade policies.  Our challenge is to understand how these changes will affect our businesses and use scenario-planning exercises to help mitigate them.