The study, The CFO as Catalyst for Change, was conducted by Longitude Research, which surveyed 930 CFOs from organisations around the world – 525 of whom were from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The findings suggest that the CFO role has become more strategic and influential over the past three years, with an increasing opportunity for CFOs to drive change across the whole organisation, rather than just the finance function.

The study found that while the overall level of the CFOs’ strategic influence has increased over the past three years (68% of EMEA respondents), only a minority play a leading role in strategy formulation (33% of EMEA respondents) or strategy execution (25% of EMEA respondents), and some obstacles still prevent CFOs from reaching their strategic potential.

John O’Rourke, vice president of product marketing, Oracle, said: "The CFO has always played a critical role in successful businesses, but what we have seen over the last few years is that the role has expanded beyond traditional finance disciplines to increasingly include a broader business strategy and transformation initiatives.

"As this study shows, CFOs realise that while their role has evolved, there is still scope to expand their influence within the business and further utilise their unique skill set. Technology can play an important part in helping CFOs realise this potential and we hope the insights delivered in this report can help facilitate that process."

Other key findings included:

  • A variety of challenges are hindering CFOs’ ability to reach their strategic potential: Although the CFO role’s strategic influence has increased, only one third (34%) of those surveyed play a leading role in strategy formulation and an even smaller proportion play a leading role in strategy execution (25% of respondents). The challenging economic environment was identified as the biggest barrier (37% of respondents), followed by a shortage of time (33% of respondents).
  • CFOs recognise that technology is a critical tool to help them fulfil their role: CFOs ranked technology knowledge second only to industry knowledge when asked where they could improve their skills and capabilities to execute on their cost and growth agendas. 82% of CFOs responding also noted that cooperation with their CIOs increased during the past three years, another indicator that technology has become a key imperative for the finance suite.
  • CFOs place increased importance on disruptive technologies as growth enablers: The findings from the joint study underscored the increased importance CFOs place on becoming more involved in understanding and leveraging disruptive technologies, such as big data, cloud computing, mobile, and social media as growth enablers. Seventy-five percent of respondents viewed access to information as a key driver of organisational agility, while 57% of respondents viewed investments in big data and analytics as a key source of competitive advantage.
  • CFOs see a need to shift away from IT maintenance and integration issues and focus on technology as an innovation enabler: When asked about which aspects of their company’s technology causes them greatest concern, survey respondents pointed to the cost of maintenance, the cost of integration and the lack of integration between systems as their top three concerns, followed by data quality and integration. According to the study, this continued focus on passive IT concerns underscores the need for CFOs to shift their focus toward more technology-led innovation and growth projects in order to better realize their strategic, operational and professional objectives.

Donniel Schulman, managing director of Finance and Enterprise Performance at Accenture, noted: "As CFOs see their zone of influence and responsibility expand, can also be under increasing pressure to fuel their corporate growth engines, as was reconfirmed in this study.

"As the CFO agenda broadens, finance officers are leveraging back office processes, controls and analytics to provide insight and priorities for transformation. This can allow them to successfully step up and fulfil their role as agents of change."