No two industries are exactly alike, but CFOs working across different industries share similar goals. Check out our new industry pages to see how we are helping finance leaders in all verticals deliver more value to their organizations.
In the past month, Aptitude Software has spent time with CFOs in telecommunications (at the Global Telecom Business CFO Summit), in Life sciences (at the CBI event) and in Retail (at Retail Week Live). From our discussions, we see a lot of similarities in the challenges finance executives are facing.
The Strategic CFO
CFOs in most of our industries are working with their business on strategic issues. Finance is no longer synonymous with accounting or backwards looking reporting.
As CFOs become more integral to business decision-making, they need better information and to reduce the time, effort and resources required to produce statutory reporting.
(For more information on how finance teams are addressing finance change, please look out for our upcoming ebook for insights on how to improve finance architectures)
CFOs’ drivers differ despite similar goals
For all these similarities, very different drivers affect CFOs in different industries. For example,
- In telecommunications, for example, many finance teams are affected by changing revenue recognition rules but see this as an opportunity to drive more value into the business
- Healthcare payers and providers (particularly in the US) are worried about linking quality and cost data to better understand the cost of care
- Retailers need to better understand financial insights such as SKU-level profitability in order to gain a competitive edge
- Banks and financial services teams need to address regulatory reporting requirements to deliver financial transparency to investors, while efficiently deploying liquidity to achieve returns
Although the immediate challenges and projects can be different, the common themes are increasing efficiency, unlocking detailed financial insight from data, and address a range of new reporting requirements.
For more information, see our industry pages or read about Aptitude Software’s range of software solutions for finance.
