The Key Role of CFOs in Employing Data-driven Decisions

Organizations that gather reliable data and use it to inform their decisions are better positioned for success. In a recent article for Financial Management, author Luke O’Neill discusses the key role that CFOs play in ensuring that data is used effectively to inform decisions.

Good data practices can help organizations gain revenue and function more efficiently while simultaneously reducing both costs and risk. Striving to ensure accurate metrics and seeking to establish the daily habit of monitoring key metrics will help CFOs achieve these goals. “Executives must carefully think through what they want to accomplish with analytics, the organizational culture must allow decision-makers to ask the right questions, and processes must be in place to generate predictive insights from data,” explains O’Neill.

In order to make the most of data and integrate it into their decision-making process, the author suggest that CFOs consider the following strategies:

1. Clearly define all goals and processes for data use within the organization.
2. Test out new data concepts in a single area before integrating them across the organization.
3. Quickly identify when a process is not working well and stop employing it.
4. Keep the end users—customers—always top of mind when developing new processes or capabilities.
5. Encourage buy-in from both teams and customers by getting the word out about new solutions.
6. Create a holistic plan for incorporating new processes that takes into account all areas of the organization’s operating model.

For more details, click here to read the article in full at Financial Management.