Next Generation Finance Skills - a business and personal challenge
By Andy Burrows
What are the skills needed for Finance in business in the next generation? One of the biggest current challenges for the Finance and Accounting profession, the individual Finance professional, and Finance functions in general, is around skills.
It’s not just a problem of what skills are needed for the future. But whose responsibility is it to create the career pathways, the learning opportunities, and to ensure the right skills, mindsets and behaviours, prevail?
In an earlier article, I looked at what’s really happening in Finance in the realm of automation and technology. I argued that it need not be all about RPA and AI, as the media and software companies would have you believe. There are plenty of other tools we already have in the toolbox, some are more robust and stable, and some are much lower cost. Automation isn’t new in Finance, and RPA is just the new kid on the block (and that would make AI a babe in arms!).
But what I want to point out...
The Future CFO ā 4 Ingredients for CFO Success in the Modern Age
By Andy Burrows
[Published 23rd July 2018, edited 20th September 2018]
To be successful the future CFO will need to be all about mindsets and methodologies.
My presentation at the AICPA-CIMA Finance Transformation conference in London this year would have been entitled, “the DNA of the future CFO”.
And since I now can't do the talk because I'm having cancer treatment, I'm letting you know my basic thesis, right here!
But am I out of step?! I mean, surely the future CFO is going to be all about digital technology, automation and predictive analytics? Well the Finance Transformation conference is hearing plenty of perspectives on all those things from people more qualified than me!
Would you like to hear a different perspective? I knew you would! Here we go...
So, here’s what I mean by mindsets and methodologies. Four essential ingredients for being a successful CFO in the future. Four parts to the DNA of the future CFO.
1. The future CFO must...
Why the āFuture CFOā Should Spend Less Time Business Partnering, Not More
By Andy Burrows
[First published 14 June 2018]
The title of this article may sound strange in an age where Finance business partnering is one of the megatrends in Finance. But bear with me. There’s a good reason why I’m going to argue that “the future CFO” should do less business partnering, and not more.
I’m going to start by arguing that, contrary to popular belief, the CFO’s role has already changed such that they are now seen as THE Finance Business Partner. There’s no need to berate them any more for being mere beancounters and scorekeepers. As a generalisation, especially in medium to large enterprises, most CFOs are seen as the CEO’s right hand, and it’s those two roles together that face the business owners.
But I’ll also argue that this has made CFOs so busy that they’ve become disconnected from the Finance function. They now almost look at Finance from the outside, as just an overhead to cut wherever...
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