A recent article by CFO Magazine discusses some survey results with over 100 finance executives about who is responsible for profitability within a business.
Responsibility for improving profit margins is shared across the company. As a result, CFOs “feel a growing responsibility to serve up the timely data and targeted insights that can help businesses meet profitability targets.”
Other survey findings include:
“73% agree that it will become increasingly difficult to improve margins over the next two years.”
“57% report that their companies are more profitable this year than last, while 43% say they either have gained no ground (18%) or have slid backwards (25%).”
“84% of respondents say they are likely to see their finance functions serve as key players in enterprise profitability improvement”
“70% say they believe their current finance teams have the expertise and knowledge needed to support profitability improvement.”
“66% say that their companies are effective at accessing and analyzing relevant data to discover profit opportunities.”
“74% agree that using data more effectively could make a substantial difference in their companies’ ability to improve profitability.”
“A large majority (85%) of the executives in the survey say that a close working relationship between the finance function and the sales organization is important for optimizing their company’s profitability.”
“The first challenge for finance is developing an understanding of what information will have the greatest impact on profitability when it is shared across the business. An increasingly complex business environment generates enormous volumes of data, and companies are increasingly looking to the finance function to help them sift through the data, identify critical trends, and develop effective responses that will help protect and improve margins.”