Will you be able to stand behind the decisions you’re making today when tomorrow arrives?

In an environment shaped by fast‑moving external forces, finance leaders face hard trade-offs. Capacity is stretched. Priorities collide. Urgency wins.

We asked our teams where they’re seeing CFOs get blindsided. The questions they didn't ask until too late. Then we brought those into one place to help you test your thinking and spot gaps before they become problems.

“CFOs are carrying an extraordinary load. 85% tell us that workload and skills gaps are already creating unsustainable strain. We know that no CFO has the bandwidth to tackle all these areas alone. But by surfacing the right questions early, you give yourself the time and the headroom to line up the resource and support you’ll need, before scrutiny arrives.”
Simon Davidson Partner, Finance Consulting

The CFO Scorecard

Broadly speaking, we see the CFO role stretch across four core areas: 

  • Value creation: Helping to generate value for the organisation through delivery of insights, involvement in strategic decisions, and leadership of change initiatives
  • Stakeholder management: Identifying and balancing the needs of relevant stakeholders and customers, including those inside and outside the Finance Function
  • Business protection: Ensuring that appropriate controls, processes and governance are effective to identify and mitigate risks faced by the organisation and discharge relevant compliance responsibilities
  • Operational delivery: Completing core Finance Function tasks such as transaction processing, maintenance of ledgers, and statutory reporting

By testing your thinking against each of the topics within each, you can see where your attention is landing, and where it isn’t, before gaps turn into problems.

Where shocks are showing up:

Value creation

36% of CFOs view internal AI adoption outpacing controls and governance as a major risk to business continuity and operations over the next 12 months.

  • Are your core systems (ERP, data platforms, forecasting tools) resilient enough to support rapid reforecasting and scenario modelling under volatility, or are you largely reliant on manual processes?
  • Are any major transformation programmes (ERP, finance transformation, data upgrades) at risk of stalling due to short-term firefighting?
  • How confident are you that your approach to AI and automation is appropriately governed and aligned to your risk appetite, as adoption evolves over time?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Mark O'Sullivan.

Stakeholder management

79% of CFOs agree that ownership of key business risks is unclear across their organisation. Don’t let that ambiguity become your burden.

  • If the Board asked tomorrow, could you confidently articulate who owns each major risk, or are there any areas where ownership is currently ambiguous? Are escalation routes and decision rights clear?  
  • Are you communicating the financial and operational implications of disruption clearly and consistently to the Board, lenders and investors -and are decisions being fully documented?
  • Do you currently have a coherent narrative that links scenario planning, liquidity, supply chain exposure and continuity plans into one story for stakeholders?
  • How aligned are Finance, Operations, HR and Risk in what is being said externally and internally, and are mixed messages being avoided?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Simon Davidson.

85% of CFOs agree that workload and skills gaps are creating unsustainable strain within their finance function.    

  • How are you planning for future capability and capacity needs as volatility becomes the norm, not the exception?
  • Is your finance team operating at a sustainable pace, or are current pressures (reforecasting, scenario modelling, supply chain volatility, audit demands) creating hidden burnout or error risk? If so, how are you addressing that risk?
  • Do you have the right mix of skills - data, modelling, controls, partnering, commercial insight – in the right quantity to respond to disruption at the speed the business needs – and if not, what’s your Plan B?
  • Which activities could be automated, paused or re‑sequenced to free up capacity for the work that cannot wait?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Simon Davidson.

  • Amid current geopolitical volatility, do you have real-time visibility of where all your people are and the risks, they face?
  • Are people deployment risks built into your wider continuity plans – not treated as just an HR issue? 
  • If a high-risk location became unworkable, what’s your plan to protect people and keep operations running?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Katie Bond.

Business protection

Despite coming into effect on 1 January 2026, only 22% of CFOs say their business is fully prepared for the impact of the amendments to FRS 102 on their business.

  • Have you assessed the full impact of the revised FRS 102 requirements (if applicable) on your reporting, or does current stretch mean you may be pushing preparation into the most pressured part of year-end?
  • Have you revisited your going concern assessment in light of current geopolitical conditions, including stress testing assumptions over the next 12 months?
  • Are there potential non‑adjusting post‑balance‑sheet events that may require disclosure in your year‑end accounts?
  • Do you have contingency plans if access to key markets becomes restricted or more costly, and are these reflected in your going concern sensitivity analysis?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Pinkesh Patel

82% of CFOs say tax is often treated as an afterthought in decision-making.  

  • Are your tax management approaches robust enough to support adjustments to investment plans or international operations during prolonged uncertainty?
  • Are temporary or emergency moves due to geopolitical volatility creating unexpected income tax, payroll, or corporate tax obligations?
  • Have you assessed the knock-on tax implications of supply chain disruption and energy price volatility (including corporate tax exposure, transfer pricing alignment and VAT)?
  • Has your tax team reviewed whether changes in routing or processing could affect customs valuation, rules of origin or duties, and therefore your landed cost per unit?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Yvonne Chappell.

33% of CFOs say they don’t know which risks or assumptions to test in the current environment.  

  • How are you currently scenario planning or stress testing your business plan to account for potential economic downturns or prolonged volatility?
  • Which assumptions in your current business model are most exposed to uncertainty, and how frequently are you revisiting them?
  • Have you considered how fluctuations in inflation, power prices or interest rates could impact your long-term investment returns?
  • Are you assessing supply chain vulnerabilities- particularly dependencies on overseas components - and modelling delays or cost impacts?
  • Have you stress tested your capital availability and funding runway?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Jade Palmer.

 

37% anticipate cyber-attacks could have a major impact on their business operations and continuity over the next 12 months. 

  • Are you confident there is someone in the business, internally or externally, with the depth of cyber expertise needed to give you reliable advice and challenge?
  • How dependent are you on suppliers and third parties, each with their own cyber risks? 
  • Do you audit or assess suppliers and third parties cyber posture, and do you know what the financial impact would be if one of them went offline?  
  • Are you prepared from a business continuity and operational resilience perspective if you fall victim to a cyber-attack? Have you tested Incident Response Plans and Business Continuity arrangements?
  • Are you confident your current cyber posture is keeping pace with the growing attack surface, including AI‑related threats?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Vijay Rathour.

  • What impact could sustained higher energy costs have on your pricing, investment plans, and cash flow in the next 6–12 months, and if you are a large power buyer, have you hedged your position to reduce exposure to volatility? 
  • Do you rely on government incentives or interventions, and have you reassessed how realistic those expectations are in the current fiscal environment?
  • Are you actively monitoring potential supply chain impacts as short-term disruption may evolve into longer-term challenges? 
  • Are rising energy, freight or insurance costs impacting the profitability of key contracts or product lines?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Alasdair Grainger.

Operational delivery

Only half (54%) of CFOs say they their business is prepared to meet their sustainability reporting requirements.

  • Are you investing and resourcing sustainability reporting appropriately, given current regulatory, geopolitical and cost pressures?
  • Do you have appropriate assurance and control over sustainability disclosures to manage greenwashing, reputational and legal risk?
  • Where are investors, lenders or customers driving sustainability disclosure ahead of regulation — and what are the cost and risk implications?
  • How ready are you to report under new or updated sustainability reporting requirements? 

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Laura Gardner.

35% of CFOs expect pressures around liquidity and access to capital to pose a major risk to their business over the next 12-months, with nearly one-in-five not confident in their ability to manage this.  

  • How robust, up‑to‑date, efficient, and accurate is your cash‑flow forecasting?
  • How are recent trade route disruptions and geopolitical tensions affecting inventory levels, lead times, and the amount of cash tied up in stock‑in‑transit?
  • Are current financing facilities and covenants giving you enough headroom to manage prolonged volatility?
  • With lenders tightening credit in response to geopolitical instability, have you fully mapped the alternative financing routes available to you?

Have you considered the impact of exchange and interest rate volatility on your businesses profitability and options to mitigate these risks including hedging?

Feeling stuck? Reach out to Jon Bramwell.

If this hits a pressure point, we're here to help:

Simon Davidson

Partner, Finance Consulting
Leeds  Office
View full profile