Uncertain Times Highlight Need for Change at the CFO and Finance Levels, Deloitte Report

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - March 29, 2016) - In the face of an increasingly uncertain business climate, finance departments have only four to five years to modernize if they are to meet the growing expectations of the organizations they serve. According to a new report from Deloitte, Modernizing Finance: Why the time is now and how Finance can get there, CFOs need to unlock the value of their Finance teams by shifting them away from generating data to producing insights that better support the organization in making important business decisions.

"Many Finance teams are constrained by outdated software tools, incongruent processes, and a lack of automated controls for the reliability of information that results in a lot of manual workaround and wasted time," said Mike Goodfellow, Partner at Deloitte Canada. "They need to set out a vision of where Finance needs to be in four to five years, supported with a game plan to achieve that objective."

A survey of over 1,000 finance leaders who attended Deloitte's Finance Trends conferences across Canada in late 2015 and early 2016 found that 84 per cent of the respondents said they should be working as partners with the C-suite to shape the organization's strategic direction. This includes developing scenarios based on different capital allocation decisions, return on investment implications and various cost capital models. However, just 25 per cent of CFOs said they had the time to devote to strategic activities that help shape and define their organization's operational plans.

Modernizing Finance sets out a game plan that CFOs can use to take charge of and manage the change in their Finance departments. It includes setting a vision for Finance that is aligned with, directly linked to and supportive of the overall corporate vision. After identifying their Finance team's current capabilities, CFOs can use a Finance maturity model provided in the report to identify the capabilities it will need to acquire, and then set out an actionable roadmap to achieve them.

The report also focuses on three areas that currently constrain many Finance teams, which they can begin modernizing immediately: the ability to convert data into meaningful and easy to understand finance insights; improving the speed and efficiency of the financial close process; and providing forecasts and other forward-looking management information to the organization.

"Finance is on the cusp of a major change that will result in it being markedly different in just five years' time," Goodfellow continued. "The good news is that Finance won't need to throw out all of its current systems and processes and starting over from scratch. This is much more about evolution than revolution."

About Deloitte
Deloitte, one of Canada's leading professional services firms, provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services. Deloitte LLP, an Ontario limited liability partnership, is the Canadian member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and its member firms.