CFO Survey Reveals Digital Transformation Priorities

How are CFO priorities shifting as they lead their companies into the post-COVID environment?  Results from the CFO Indicator Survey 2020 conducted by Workday reveal how CFOs are transitioning focus of their digital initiatives to support an improving economic outlook going into 2021.

Earlier in 2020, Workday conducted a survey of 225 CFOs from global organizations in a range of industries to find out how they’re dealing with finance digital transformation in the COVID crisis and beyond.  Company sizes represented in the survey were evenly split among small (<500 employees), medium (500–3,500), and large (>3,500 employees) organizations.

In March/April of this year, the top priorities of CFOs were areas you would probably expect to be of immediate concern as the crisis quickly came upon us:

  • Workforce planning and optimization (61%)
  • Cost containment (59%)
  • Cash and liquidity management (54%)
  • Revenue projection (53%)
  • Supplier risk management (19%)

The same CFOs indicated the following areas will be their top priorities as conditions improve going into 2021:

  • Revenue projection (43%, down from 53%)
  • Supplier risk management (38%, up from 19%)
  • Cash and liquidity management (36%, down from 54%)
  • Finance digital transformation (34%, up from 5%)
  • Workforce planning and optimization (34%, down from 61%)
  • Driver-based modeling & scenario planning (31%, up from 15%)

More broadly, the survey drew out where CFOs see opportunities for and challenges to successful digital transformation initiatives.  The survey’s main findings, to quote the survey summary, are the following:

  • There is a direct link between finance digital transformation and agile business practices, swift decision-making, and more efficient reporting, planning, and financial close.
  • Nearly half of CFOs have not implemented any finance digital transformation initiatives.
  • The two greatest challenges of finance digital transformation are a technology skills gap and internal resistance to change.
  • Critical business decisions are often delayed because finance is unable to extract meaningful insights from available data.

The results and analyses of the CFO Indicator Survey 2020 can be downloaded here from Workday’s web site.

Analysis Team has the technical and financial expertise to successfully implement Workday Adaptive Planning for your company (or update the model you currently have).  We can help you improve planning, analysis and reporting so you’re better positioned for growth.  Feel free to reach out to us at Info@AnalysisTeam.com.