The CFO’s journey to digital maturity
The four stages, from protection to innovation.
Are finance leaders ready to deliver digital strategy?
Our survey of 500 finance leaders shows finance teams and their wider organisations typically fall into one of four stages of digital maturity: defence, building foundations, unleashing capabilities, or creating a culture of innovation.
Those who are more advanced have clear advantages over those who haven’t fully used new technology such as AI.
These include greater efficiency, improved accuracy, better decision-making, and stronger fraud protection. Teams are also free to focus on high-value strategy work thanks to automation.
In this series of insights, our experts help you identify where you are and how to put technology at the centre of your finance function’s success.
Defend against threats
Protecting financial health is the core of a CFO’s role, making defending against costly digital attacks a natural extension of their responsibilities. Some 90% of businesses have experienced a data breach or cyber-attack in the last three years – mostly at a financial cost.
Digital risk doesn’t just come from the outside – erroneous data, AI hallucinations or privacy breaches can be just as costly.
Learn how CFOs are defending their businesses with response plans, data and AI governance and improved control environments.
Defend your business against threats using these practical steps.
Build solid digital foundations
CFOs agree that systems are critical to delivering the business strategy. But only 54% are highly satisfied with their performance.
To harness capabilities such as GenAI and automation, organisations must first ensure they have strong core systems, data management and quality data.
Our latest insight uncovers five principles for successful systems implementation, high-quality data and effective data management.
Make the most out of your systems and data investments.
Unleash digital capabilities with analytics, automation and AI
Finance leaders recognise the wealth of opportunities that digital transformation can bring to their businesses, from uncovering new revenue streams to enhancing employee satisfaction. However, without the right planning, it can result in disgruntled stakeholders, risk exposure and wasted costs.
In-depth project planning is essential, as are sufficient skills and resources to support implementation. However, 77% of finance leaders say they’re going to struggle to access people with the right skills over the next 12 months.
Invest in skills, consistent training and clear management to reap the benefits of AI, automation and analytics.
Create a culture where digital innovation thrives
Finance leaders must lead by example when encouraging their team and board to accept digital tools as an answer to new problems.
As well as showing stakeholders how technology has saved time and money, CFOs can model a digital-first mindset with their own actions.
Learn more about the small changes that can drive large-scale cultural change.
Instil a digital-first mindset and access the benefits of your technology investments.
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The journey to digital maturity is unique to each finance leader. Wherever you are on your journey, use our insights to fill the gaps and guide your next move.
*The CFO Digital Survey is an anonymous questionnaire for 300 CFOs at businesses with £50 million-£1 billion annual revenue, and 200 CFOs/GFCs at businesses with more than £1 billion annual revenue. The data was obtained in June 2024.
All respondents come from UK-based businesses across a range of sectors and regions.