A Percipient Perspective
Chris Stock, Managing Director at Percipient, examines some of the biggest challenges CFOs will likely face in 2025 and highlights the increasing importance of digital in addressing these.
Transformation Over Tradition
If 2024 was the year of digital transformation for CFOs, 2025 is set to put this transition through its paces. Economic uncertainty in recent years has driven a need for finance departments to reinvent themselves. Expanding on traditional record-keeping and retrospective reporting functions, CFOs are doubling down on value creation and intelligence gathering to steer their organisations on their respective growth journeys.
A Tale of Data, Metrics & Analytics
While many have embraced this shift, implementing modern systems and adopting AI capabilities to expedite automation, the acid test for CFOs in 2025 will hinge on the extent to which they seize the potential of digital. Technology is no longer a necessary evil or afterthought but part of the DNA of any modern finance department.
If evidence was needed, a recent survey highlighted that three-quarters (75%) of CFOs claim digital transformation is gaining strategic importance as we move into 2025. This starkly contrasts with 2023, when financial and economic uncertainty topped concerns.
Gartner’s analysis of CFO priorities for the coming year echoes this sentiment. In contrast to previous years, data, metrics, and analytics outranked efficiency, time allocation, and leadership capacity.
Embracing Digital Potential
In overcoming obstacles, mitigating risk, and embracing market opportunities, it’s reassuring that almost half (47%) of organisations plan to increase technology spending in the year ahead, which is the top priority after new product development.
However, investment alone is not sufficient. The pace of change in the world means that those systems’ potential for automation, value and intelligence must be harnessed to accelerate decision-making and gain a competitive edge.
Cutting the Right Costs
Any period of economic uncertainty prioritises cost-cutting, and the years following the pandemic have been no exception. Now, cost-cutting and efficiency drives must be carefully balanced against investment in growth as we head towards steadier, more optimistic times.
Investing in Growth
Understanding where efficiencies can be realised versus where investment is needed to propel growth requires visibility, intelligence, and understanding the various business drivers, dynamics, and associated performance. For example, unifying data to achieve this means that trends can be mapped against each other and dimensions analysed easily to spot opportunities.
As the saying goes, AI won’t replace people, but people with AI at their fingertips will replace those without.
Talent Acquisition
Skills remain a concern across all industries, and digital can automate daily manual processes, freeing resources to focus on more valuable, sought-after skills.
AI won’t replace people and single-handedly bridge this talent dearth. Still, it will form part of a new, holistic leadership model that balances data-led learning with human understanding and intelligence. As the saying goes, AI won’t replace people, but people with AI at their fingertips will replace those without.
Preparing for the Unexpected
Ultimately, 2025 will call for CFOs to demonstrate more resilience and agility as market dynamics and opportunities change ever-increasingly. Gone are the days when the last five years’ accounts would be a reasonable barometer for the next half-decade.
On the edge of a rolling landscape that encompasses evolving customer demand, a shifting regulatory environment, sustainability goals and heightened risk in the form of cybersecurity threats, digital reigns.
By creating a dynamic forecast which can be adjusted as the many variables surrounding a given market change, it not only improves automation and efficiency but is pivotal in risk management, decision-making, resilience and long-term growth.
Exciting Times for Finance
2025 is undoubtedly an exciting time to be a CFO. But with increasing levels of expectation and pressure from CEOs and shareholders, it’s imperative to be informed, equipped with the right tools, and have an understanding of the critical role of technology. Armed with the right digital mindset, those who embrace this opportunity to drive strategic counsel to the wider business will represent the market leaders of tomorrow.
If you’d like to discuss how we can help you to embrace the latest finance technology and support your digital journey, please get in touch or contact us on 01606 8721332.
