CFO Donning Strategic Advisors Hat To Business

Maximizing Long-Term Corporate Growth And Shareholder Value

A good CFO should act as strategic advisor to business, help or be a part of all strategic and commercial decisions, improved performance by adding insight to decision making and be a catalyst of change.

Given the changing market dynamics, CFOs need to focus on revenue growth or preservation, cost containment and prudent capital usage. Moving to  the operational side, CFOs  needs to engage in organizational streamlining and alignment strategies , containing costs for maintaining margins and building organizational blocks for long term sustainability. It is important for the CFOs to effectively communicate with various stakeholders since he plays
an important role to company’s strategic goals and efficiency.

Today's urgent changes in the business environment require CFOs to drive sustainable value creation in their organizations. Whether prompted by unstable economic conditions, high-stakes mergers and acquisitions, or intense global competition, the entire organization is
continuously challenged to “do more with less”—and the CFO is now in prime position to champion the creation of business value from strategy to execution.

"Given the changing market dynamics, CFO’s need to focus on revenue growth or preservation, cost containment and prudent capital usage"

I believe the CFO can play a stronger role in the organization, thereby maximizing shareholders value by the followings:
1) Create a culture of innovation and learning- Finance team members must understand the business themselves and be able to communicate effectively. CFOs should be able to have discussions with CEOs or board members on 'what if' scenarios, where the business is (risks
and opportunities ) and where it can be improved. It is important to develop competencies in due diligence, change management and business integration to handle acquisitions.
2) Develop Strategic partnership with the business– Focus on supporting business growth. .
3) Benchmarking is important to establish the baseline for process improvement which can be leveraged across the business. Adopt new technology and automation to simplify processes improvement  and drive efficiency.
4) Attract and retain the high performance team– Focus on getting right people in right roles.