CFOs Find New Opportunities in Regulatory Complexities

Savvy finance executives are seeing increased regulatory and financial reporting requirements as transformation opportunities, according to a new study released today by the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network and sponsored by Tagetik, a visionary leader in global performance management software solutions.

While global financial and regulatory reporting demands have grown exponentially over recent years, CFOs are successfully implementing solutions to handle complex reporting needs while simultaneously increasing the overall agility of their teams and their capacity to provide insights and business counsel, according to the study, “Progressive CFOs; Inspired By What’s Required: How Global Finance Executives Are Creating Strategic Opportunity from Increased Regulatory and Corporate Reporting Complexity.”

The report is based on in-depth interviews with finance executives from large organizations based in Europe and North America, including Xerox, Aggreko, Assicurazioni Generali, John Hancock, UniCredit Group and others.

“Our conversations revealed that while finance executives are grappling with a torrent of pressures to improve and streamline reporting and other financial processes, most find that these efforts, while initially costly, are resulting in the ability to respond more strategically to business risks and opportunities,” said Dave Murray, head of thought leadership at the BPI Network.

The report points to a number of critical drivers for change within finance organizations, including:

New, more stringent and costly global financial reporting regulations
Increased risks and competitive demands across global markets
Growing business and operational complexity of multinationals
The need for analysis and reporting across a wider range of data sources
The expanding role of the Office of Finance as a business partner to the C-suite and business units

The study provides an overview of how executives are managing these challenges through the implementation of a unified Financial Performance Platform and the ancillary benefits realized to date.

“This is a very disruptive period, which means it is a fantastic opportunity to evolve,” said Massimo Romano, head of integrated reporting for Assicurazioni Generali, one of the world’s largest insurance companies. “The finance community is dealing with something that is incredibly new and difficult, but it’s an opportunity to grow our role from simple bookkeeping to something much more valuable. Yet all that is possible only if you evolve your mindset and your capacity to manage through a perfect storm.”

“While finance executives must tackle the challenges of financial and regulatory reporting, they also want a more strategic role when it comes to guiding and facilitating decisions at all levels of the organization,” said David Kasabian, Tagetik chief marketing officer. “They are looking to automate the ‘have-tos’ of the job so that they and their teams can spend more time working with business leaders on strategic initiatives such as risk analysis and profitability modeling.”

A complimentary copy of the complete report, “Progressive CFOs; Inspired by What’s Required,” is available by visiting http://www.bpinetwork.org/progressive-cfo-report