CFO Value Creation in 2023: Growth Enablement
The 2023 Global Mid-Market CFO Sentiment Study conducted by The CFO Alliance points to a shift from short-term internal problem solving to long-term innovation that better assures growth. The study revealed that emerging and mid-market CFOs are solidly focused on impacting the unmet needs and priorities of buyers. As they augment the composite of data visualization, toolsets, talent, and process management for a higher productivity and accuracy yield across their finance functions, they are also investing to ensure their companies are more market-centered and connect more relevantly with buyers. Up and down the value chain, CFOs are creating an interlocking system of change that not only ensures that their growth missions succeed but also that the manner of executing their go-to-market strategies ensures customers view their companies as indispensable.
For CFOs, it has always been about enabling sustainable growth despite the orthodoxic focus on cost containment persisting on management agendas. Today’s CFOs are focused on the top line as much as the bottom. Over 75% of study responders are making double digit investment increases in marketing, sales, talent, and supportive technologies to scale their growth engines as they make the most of existing assets and capabilities. And the “turbo effect” on their plans is a bullish sentiment expressed in the study that underscores confidence in predicting solid growth for 2023.
With executable data and digitization in full view on the value spectrum and generative AI moving more center-stage rapidly from the periphery, CFOs are realists who realize there is a difference between doing digital and being digital. So, they are intent on developing a future vision of the customer to accelerate the right digital investments, and narrowing the metrics used to measure and manage digital initiatives to focus on key business outcomes. Consequently, they are directing incremental resources to improve market understanding with CRM/pipeline management technologies and data visualization commanding 20% and 25% increases, respectively. And depending on company size, a quarter to almost half of the CFOs surveyed are investing in ERP software to integrate core business processes and sharpen the alignment needed for seamless market engagement and remarkable buying journeys.
For more insights about what CFOs are thinking and doing, download The 2023 Global Mid-Market CFO Sentiment Study here.
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