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Modern day CFOs are not only navigating financial technology and data journeys but also driving the organization’s overall technology direction based on extracting maximum utility in day-to-day transactions.

With the changing times, CFOs are looking beyond automating financial reporting to make business resilient amidst volatility and uncertainty.

In fact, the finance office becomes the key driver for innovation at an accelerated pace – like putting into action key insights from analytics to drive home a competitive advantage, identify new sources of sustainable value and innovate existing business models through SAP S/4HANA.

In this article experts at VC ERP Consulting focus on emerging roles & responsibilities of CFO and how SAP Solutions support these roles.

3 Emerging Roles of CFOs in the Quest for Breakthrough Speed


The pace of adapting change is increasing and the speed in responding to business change has now become a key business differentiator. To unlock this, businesses are navigating to become intelligent enterprises adopting latest technology innovations.

But how does this impact the CFOs? While taking care of conventional responsibilities such as driving effectiveness and efficiency, the added layer of strategic dimension continues to increase the importance of CFOs role.

CFOs are continuously redefining finance and business by –
  • Multiplying business value across the organization
  • Driving the sustainability agenda
  • Steering business’s overall digital journey
Well, this begs the question, and rightly so, ‘How quickly can my business adapt to these changes? How should my CFO drive this agenda’? The answer lies in the evolving role and responsibilities of CFOs. Let us take a look at each of them –

SAP S/4HANA Cloud drives the CFO as the Economic Champion

Economic championship is a must for a CFO which focuses on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance function. SAP offers CFOs the opportunity to develop a new, clean and digital core within SAP S/4HANA Cloud and then automate business processes, eliminating the need for manual intervention.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud drives several important outcomes and benefits for CFOs:

  • Improve Controls and Adhere to Compliance
  • Proactively manage risks, processes and data leveraging intelligent technology
  • Achieve improved performance visibility & accountability
  • Align governance with business outcomes and operational KPIs

Real-time Processing of Financial Transactions

  • Move processing, reconciliations and allocations to get instant views into –
    • Cash
    • Liquidity
    • Working capital
  • Improve efficiency and optimize operational costs while guiding investments

Move towards Continuous Accounting

  • Universal journal of SAP S/4HANA provides a single source of finance data
  • Eliminate time-consuming and error-prone replications and reconciliations
  • Move from a calendar based closing to continuous accounting by using a simple and central template

Analytics-driven Decision Making with Smart Reporting

  • Get self-service access to real-time data allowing quick insight-to-action on a flexible basis
  • Focus on higher-level activities by digitizing finance operations
  • Accelerate transactions processing and eliminate reconciliations

New Business Models

  • Reinvent business and collaboration models instantly
  • Manage everything from reporting structure and projections to billing, collections, disputes and DSO

SAP Intelligent Analytics for Intelligent Value Creation for the CFO

Efficient CFOs always strive to multiply business value because they operate at the core of all the happenings across the organization and the broader ecosystem.

CFOs are focusing on driving business value creation across the enterprise to serve as a multiplier of business value. As they are at the center of the ‘spider web’ they form connections throughout the function and business.

In order to manage the web of collaborative interconnectivity and drive business value, CFOs are moving towards data-powered businesses by implementing SAP S/4HANA that increases predictability and also helps you pull the right levers to identify and capture value.

Analytics and Intelligent Automation

Accelerate digital transformation by giving accurate insights as per required needs

Profile, cleanse and map critical business data to get smart on data quality

Use Artificial Intelligence to suggest and then apply data cleansing rules saving manual efforts

Digital Core

  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud – A digital backbone offers:
    • End-to-end visibility
    • Increased efficiency
    • Enhanced collaboration across business processes
    • Sustainable and resilient supply chains
    • Transformed business models
    • Agility to safeguard against disruptions

The CFO shaping the future of the Enterprise by leveraging SAC & SAP S/4HANA

Moving away from conventional accounting to adopting shared services to ERP to business intelligence solutions – CFOs have come a long way to steer their organizations’ digital transformation journey.

The role of CFOs has become critical for ensuring the ROI for new digital business models is realized and aligning the business on new regulatory requirements and market demands.

Office of finance is using technology to connect the rest of the company – operations, supply chain, sales, marketing, and more. Eliminate inefficiencies, disjointed views and drive company-wide innovation and transformation with SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

CFOs can drive enormous benefits strategically by utilizing data to better understand the leading indicators of demand that can assist with precise business planning.

This can be done by further harnessing your data with the help of SAP Analytics Cloud solution in conjunction with SAP S/4HANA that takes charge of your business planning and strategy.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud + SAP Analytics Cloud = Powerful combination of Business Intelligence, predictive analytics and collaborative planning
  • Rapidly explore, visualize, plan, predict and forecast in a single application
  • Run simulations right from the meeting room with in-built Digital Boardroom feature
  • Smart insight & smart discovery features to enable planning and see impact on decisions
  • Identify future risks and opportunities by using variations in external data
  • Accurately forecast future demand and minimize outages

Drive Speed & Innovation through SAP S/4HANA Cloud Today!


The dots connecting all three evolving roles of modern CFOs are speed and adaptability. The Office of Finance is encouraging fresh thinking and innovation through SAP S/4HANA cloud, to allocate resources with greater agility and mitigate risks in a volatile environment.

Take innovation beyond ideas and put it into action through experimentation and quick wins by implementing SAP S/4HANA cloud with VC ERP Consulting, the best SAP Gold Partner. More importantly, CFOs can create value by building scalable, measurable and relevant solutions to everyday business problems.

Are you ready to drive top line growth and bottom-line profitability with SAP S/4HANA Cloud? Get in touch with award winning SAP Gold Partner, Certified Expert SAP S/4HANA Consultants and Advisors at VC ERP Consulting for free consultation.

Call +91 7948998911 (India), Whatsapp +254 111229970 (Kenya), Call +1 469 9156026 (North America), +974 31239246 (MENA) or drop an E-mail at sayhello@vc-erp.com.