Each year the CFO Alliance conducts a CFO Sentiment Study, providing exclusive insight and measurable statistics that are critical to the strategic planning and financial outlook of CFO’s across the United States.
The best practices and statistics shared in this study will help companies identify challenges and ways to move forward and innovate in 2015.
The CFO Alliance is comprised of senior financial leaders and decision makers, spanning a wide range of industry groups, company sizes, and geographies. The survey data comes from more than 600 responses solicited from financial leaders in private industries and also public and non-profit sectors.
The results of the study speak to positive expectations for the US economy in 2015, and specific business industries. Other revelations include:
- Projected spending increases to keep pace with technological advancements and innovation trends, more specifically increases will be seen in employee wages and benefits, data security and cloud computing, social media marketing, and primarily in hardware and software purchases.
- In addition to spending, 95% of those surveyed agreed that organizations must encourage communication and create a culture of innovation moving forward to successfully achieve objectives.
- Collaboration between the CFO and marketing will be essential, as 61.5% said their marketing initiatives will be the number one factor impacting their company’s success in 2015.
- The leadership role of the CFO is changing too, with the value of being “social” taking precedence and projected to have positive implications this year. Along with this new “social” role CFOs should pay close attention to the importance of customer engagement and human capital optimization goals as well.
The role of the CFO is continually broadening to accommodate emerging growth initiatives and deliver impactful results that are critical to all aspects of business operations. And CFOs are playing a greater role in determining corporate direction, strategies, and ultimately creating long-term shareholder value.
Are there any stats in the study that surprise you? We’re guessing there are a few! We’d love to hear your thoughts on the study in the comments.
And feel free to enjoy our analyst webinar on Unleash Innovation – Put Your Community to Work which discussed more innovation trends and ways to help create a culture of innovation.
