Organizations often expect the CEO to provide strategic vision, but an article on CFO.com explains that the CFO can play a key role in scaling the company. To focus on growth, CFOs should first clear their desks of basic finance and accounting tasks by using outsourcing and AP automation, then use analytics to reveal financial obstacles and identify strategic opportunities.
Finance officers can help scale their organizations by following these three steps outlined by CFO.com.
- Delegate and outsource nonstrategic tasks. CFOs are well positioned to actively develop cost-effective outsourcing solutions in areas like human resources and accounting. Invoice processing and AP automation, for example, can be outsourced to SaaS providers like Chrome River, saving both time and money.
- Know what stands in your way. A second key to growth is to identify the organization’s current obstacles, according to CFO.com. A robust analytics platform improves transparency, which can help identify such problems as lagging sales or quality-control issues. From there, analytics can help managers streamline day-to-day operations and improve the speed and efficacy of decision-making.
- Refine the organization’s vision and plans for growth. Here again, an analytics platform is crucial, helping finance officers identify key trends and quickly use this data to guide viable, multiyear goals for growth. With a user-friendly analytics solution, CFOs can combine multiple sources of enterprise data and generate complex reports, charts and dashboards without having to rely on technical staff.
In the end, many organizations stand to benefit from their CFOs taking on greater leadership roles and collaborating with the CEO on strategies for long-term growth. The right tools, like analytics and AP automation, give finance officers the time back in their day to explore strategic opportunities and greater clarity when viewing the big picture.
We appreciate your feedback. How do you think a CFO can best contribute to a company’s scalability? Post your thoughts in the comments section!
Source: CFO.com, July 2013
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