Key Findings

  • CFOs are still widely seen as leaders of the "department of no" among their executive team peers, according to a survey released Wednesday by financial software provider Datarails.
  • The vast majority of executives surveyed (97%) believe finance's primary role is to limit spending, while many CFOs are working to be seen as collaborative business partners. According to the survey report, only 18% of business partners strongly agreed that finance considers their strategic needs in decision-making, while a quarter strongly disagreed.
  • "Finance business partnering has long been touted as the path to transforming the CFO office from a cost center to a profit center. In this context, the CFO should act as a strategic co-pilot for every department... However, reality is often characterized by a lack of communication, ineffective insights, and strategic misalignment," Datarails CEO Didi Gurfinkel said in a press release.

Deeper Insights

Gartner survey results released earlier this year show CFOs face pressure to take on responsibilities beyond traditional finance functions. "For most CFOs, responsibilities outside finance include enterprise data and analytics, enterprise risk, corporate strategy, M&A, and procurement. This expanded role requires CFOs to make decisive trade-offs in how they spend their time and prioritize," Mallory Bulman, CFO advisory leader in Gartner's finance practice, said in a press release at the time.

Gartner also noted that CFOs are increasingly overseeing matters related to artificial intelligence, information technology, real estate, cybersecurity, and environmental, social, and governance issues, requiring them to "use their time more effectively and rely more on support from their leadership teams."

According to Anders Liu-Lindberg, a partner at Danish management consultancy Business Partnering Institute, three forces are accelerating the transformation of the CFO role: technology, disruption, and new stakeholder demands. In a recent blog post, Liu-Lindberg said the rise of technologies like AI is forcing CFOs to become "technology translators," requiring them to collaborate with CIOs, COOs, and even CMOs to ensure technology investments align with business outcomes.

Meanwhile, geopolitical instability, trade fragmentation, and policy shifts are forcing CFOs to take on strategic risk roles, while also navigating expectations from investors and regulators on ESG performance and other issues. "Once the steadfast guardians of the numbers and stewards of the balance sheet, finance leaders are now expected to hold the corporate compass in one hand and navigate disruption with the other," Liu-Lindberg said.

In Datarails' research, 54% of executives said the insights they receive from CFOs to support decisions or spending are only "a little" or "moderate." The departments with the lowest satisfaction with the CFO office were HR and R&D, "where half of executives experienced average or poor collaboration in achieving key business goals," the study showed.

Datarails found that IT executives had the best relationship with the CFO office, with satisfaction at 66%, followed by sales executives at 63%. "This makes sense, as finance typically views sales as a profit center rather than a cost center, and therefore may make more effort to collaborate effectively," the report said.