Today every CFO has a specific skill set which is complimented by the rise in finance technologies.  The latest technology developments and finance systems cut through the complexity inherent in basic duties.  This, in turn, makes it simpler for the CFO and CEO levels to integrate with a better understanding.

According to an article published last year in The Wall Street Journal written in conjunction with Deloitte, the CFO insight and analysis professional service, tech innovations such as large data platforms, mobile and social media tools and business analytics are continuously transforming finance technology.

These new financial toolkit capabilities assist in such ways towards support and collaboration between the CEO and CFO.  The modern CFO skills will encompass tech trends that fall into two categories.

Firstly, there are the disruptive innovation technologies.  These are developments that will have fundamentally changed modern business in a few years and definitely impact how it is implemented today.  This includes in its list finance technology big data, crowdsourcing, cognitive and predictive analytics and social media. 

The modern CFO who integrates these big emerging technologies and derives financial impetus from them will be positioned to take their company well into the century.  By using these innovations to further the company finance function, this will drive performance across the board.

The second CFO technology trend is all the enabling tech innovations currently in use.  These have already altered the course and enhanced the daily financial operations in companies today.  Included in this list are such financial tech innovations such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Mobility, in-memory and visualisation computing.

These Finance Technology innovations have been highly beneficial upon implementation.  The modern CFO uses them to achieve such things as to gain better performance from the company’s systems and lowering cost of ownership. These financial technologies hand a very effective toolkit to the CFO.  It is now possible to exponentially advance and enhance financial agenda.

Efficiency and cost reductions can be monitored by keeping the SaaS model constantly in sight.  IT finances can be moved from capital expenditure costs to the operational budget.  This is possible as in place of owning an asset, IT would be consuming a service on a when needed basis.

By employing the SaaS model and technology to gather traditional performance analytics and management, this will save having to invest in hitherto unavoidable integration.  For example, subsuming new organisations into the main enterprise program would no longer be necessary as they would have the ability to operate their analytics.

This kind of mobility can extend and integrate the CFO’s capabilities more seamlessly into the organisation.  The new finance technology trends give mobility to support the business’s need for personal servicing and remote enabling of business processes, reporting and analytics at the point. 

This enhances all company decision support. CFO’s ability to communicate and partner alongside business by rendering financial data into easily consumable and familiar language to business is a powerful tool.  Perhaps the most welcome Finance Technology innovation available to the modern CFO today.

KEYWORDS: Technology CFO; Finance Technology; Modern CFO skills and competencies.

References: www.timoelliot.com www.deloitte.com/ www.deloitte.wsj.com