Finance Monthly July 2019 Edition

42 www.finance-monthly.com BUSINESS & BANKING - THE ROLE OF MODERN CFOs Moving beyond numbers Those outside the finance department often still believe that all that keeps us awake at night is numbers. Of course, the reality is that the finance function has evolved just as much as all other aspects of our organisations in recent years. Numbers are just our route to information - they are passive and only provide part of the story. They’re certainly not the objective of a CFO’s role. Or at least, they shouldn’t be. To do my job properly, and to make the best decisions for the company as a whole, I need insight – just as any other business department does. And that means being able to understand the bigger picture of our organisation, taking into account external forces such as market trends and the competitive landscape, as well as the broader economy. There is also a host of internal factors to consider spanning product, service, operations, employment and customer practices. This bigger picture which brings all of these elements together simply can’t be gained from numbers alone. It relies on a careful combination of insight gathered from across the business and presented in a way that tells us, based on clear evidence, how the investments and finance decisions we make will affect our strategic goals and our specific business KPIs. Insight gathered at speed But we don’t only need this holistic insight. We need it quickly and continuously. We need to be as agile – if not more so – than the market we serve and the competitors within it. As a software organisation, we’re used to the fail- fast approach that’s long been associated with agile product development. We know that speed of delivery is often more important for success than first-time perfect delivery. Being agile in this Business cycles move faster than they’ve ever done. Only a few years ago, significant change used to happen relatively infrequently, giving organisations the time to plan for and adapt to new ways of working. Now, disruption is almost a constant and comes from many angles, making agility a pre-requisite for business success. In this new model, decision-makers not only have to make strategic choices more quickly but also need instant access to the right information to ensure those decisions are well-informed. For CFOs, this means being able to make agile investment decisions but with so many potential ways to go - how can we gather fast, accurate insight to ensure we make the best choices? And, just as important - how can we understand where we’ve made the wrong decisions so we ‘fail fast’ and move on? Halvor W. Stokke, CFO of Confirmit, answers these questions. THE MODERN ROLE OF CFOS: Halvor W. Stokke, CFO, Confirmit THE NEED FOR KNOWLEDGEABLE SPEED

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