LAHORE-New research by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and BDO, the international network of public accounting, tax and advisory firms, has revealed how the role of the CFO is growing to include driving business decisions and reporting on the non-financial areas of their operations.
Over 100 CFOs and business leaders from around the world took part in roundtables and in-depth interviews to contribute their insight into how the traditional role of the CFO is changing, resulting in the report ‘Chief value officer – the important evolution of the CFO’.
To be successful and sustainable, businesses and other organisations increasingly need to combine economic, environmental and social equity. Those that don’t, face risks and their value can diminish – there is a very strong link between value creation and strategy. Using the breadth of drivers (financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social & relationship and nature) to generate benefit for a wide range of stakeholders creates value. With a focus for many organisations on purpose and value, contributors were asked to consider whether there is a trend to asserting the need for a new role of chief value officer and whether this a role that the CFO is already fulfilling.
The resulting three key findings from the report are:
1- The concept of value is fundamental to the management of performance in organisations and its adoption is a key element in their path to a sustainable future. 2- CFOs are increasingly adopting a value centric approach in their work and this represents an evolution towards encompassing the chief value officer role within a more traditionally financially focused remit.
3- The development path for those aspiring to be CFOs requires an increasingly broad range of experience which embraces both formal and informal learning activities: professional bodies and practices need to engage with this.