While many finance executives are slashing costs to weather the downturn, some view investments in technology as essential to better equip newly remote finance teams or strengthen other parts of the business.
Remote work is one example of creative cost savings senior finance leaders are seeking in order to avoid more severe cuts and minimize the downside impact to operations.
While budgets are declining, to-do lists are only getting longer. Technology and data are identified as two of the key issues impacting the effectiveness of finance in providing the quality of decision support needed. For many finance functions there is no single interpretation of the available data across the enterprise, making the governance process a continued challenge.
Due to the pandemic, amounts recognized in the financial statements must be adjusted to reflect changing events. Management needs to continually review and update assessments to ensure that up to the date financial statements are issued given the fluid nature of the crisis and the uncertainties involved.
Advances in technology are paving the way for a stronger finance department, a change that requires cultural and behavioural shifts within the function. More importantly, it requires executives to actively get on board behind technology adoption initiatives.
McKinsey recently published an article on the CFO’s critical role in helping companies navigate the coronavirus crisis. The CFO’s responsibilities persist throughout all segments of the organization’s crisis life-cycle of survival, stability, and a hopeful recovery by actively dealing with the crisis’ 3 segments.
Spreadsheets were built for the distributed workforce. But when you’re dealing with masses and masses of spreadsheets, there are many points to consider. How do you account for version control, audit control, backups, security, and scalability?
Business continuity and crisis management plans commonly prepare organisations for a one-off event. But few organizations, if at all, were prepared for a threat like COVID-19 that could potentially play out over months or longer.
As part of the CARES act, the US federal government has approved a nearly 350-billion-dollar program intended to provide American small businesses with eight weeks of cash-flow assistance through 100% federally guaranteed loans. All loan terms will be the same for everyone.
The emergence of COVID-19 went beyond the wildest imaginations of risk assessors. Busy forecasting against the “traditional business” threats, it did not occur to most people that a virus could disrupt, and even halt, major world economic sectors.
