Weathering the Storm: Forecasting How Data & Analytics Impact Modern Credit Teams

Introduction – The Modern CFO’s New Climate

Much has been written about the modern CFO and the new, modernized finance and credit department. In the
past few years, the winds of change have pushed finance leaders out of their roles as cost controllers, and they’re
now seen as key drivers of business growth. They’ve redefined their position to focus on being strategic advisors
within the C-suite - getting face time with the CEO to discuss the direction of the business and partnering with
the CIO on new technology investments.

More and more, CFOs are going on the record stating their goal
is to facilitate sales and uncover new revenue opportunities, not
simply to serve as Keeper of the Purse Strings. A recent Forrester
Consulting study commissioned by Dun & Bradstreet found that,
“The role of the CFO is no longer confined to finance, risk, and
compliance management … most finance leaders are not only
taking an active role in shaping their organizations’ customerfocused
initiatives, they’re also leveraging their data and strategy
expertise to guide their organizations toward a culture of datadriven
decisions.”


The strategic use of data is the cornerstone of all this change.
This new, modern CFO has been able to successfully tap into
their company’s stockpiles of digital information to mine it for
sustainable growth - not just to manage risk and profitability but
to fuel sales and inform their company’s overall data strategy. A
strong partnership with the CIO – aka Keeper of the Data –
predicated this change. The CIO and his or her team maintains
the technology that houses the data, but it’s the CFO’s ability to
leverage the data for insight that has made them a valuable
business asset and one of the harbingers of innovation.
It’s hasn’t been an easy, breezy transition for finance leaders. Back
in 2013, a study by KPMG forecasted that “CFOs can help the
company harness its data in a program that includes data
governance analytics, benchmarking, reporting, leading practices,
and intimate knowledge of the business strategy.”


Since then, many CFOs admit they have yet to achieve this perfect
professional triumvirate of data scientist, strategic advisor, and
traditional financial controller. Three years later, a 2016 study by Ernst & Young found that a whopping 58% of finance
leaders still say they need to build on their understanding of digital, smart technologies, and sophisticated data analytics.3
So while many enterprise-level leaders are breaking new ground for the finance function, it seems there’s still a long way
to go before this new, multifunction skillset reaches full adoption.

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