David Hobbs, regional vice president of business development at Computer Associates' e-business applications division interBiz, sees CIOs doing more and more of the regular management reporting tasks in companies.
Hobbs believes that improved technology has meant that these day-to-day tasks are now falling into the province of IT, rather than being handled by the CFO.
-The opportunity for the CFO in the business is to take the organisation strategy and determine the relevant performance measures that the organisation needs to be able to monitor to be successful," Hobbs said.
This means that CIOs can use the technology to monitor the measures, to make sure a company is executing the strategy a CFO has set in place. -With recent advances in technology the CIO is able to incorporate the performance measures and the rules...to continuously monitor for compliance with execution of the strategy," Hobbs said.
But are CFOs willing to give up control of the tasks they've traditionally looked after? Hobbs believes most CFOs are mature enough to see the opportunity it gives them to take a greater role in developing strategies for their organisations. -So they're able to get out of the day-to-day, month-by-month producing the management reporting and move into a more strategic mode."
-There's always going to be a need for someone to define what the business requirements are and translate that into methods that IT staff can implement," Hobbs said.
John Petty, national vice president at accounting business body CPA Australia, sees a couple of changes that have affected accountants in Australia. This includes the GST, as well as changes in accounting and tax rules. Petty sees the downside of this greater pressure on accountants is that they're not able to use their time to look forward and add value to the business.
Petty travels Australia talking about one-day reporting, which he describes as helping to solve the problems of -too much time spent after the event" reporting.
He thinks that the IT tools which are now coming onto the market will aid finance departments in analysing and presenting information in a more timely manner.
-If you can't get the information out and report it to management, then management will think the accountant or finance function isn't supporting them," Petty said.
Rob Pearsall, a partner at professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, has also seen a change in the relationship between accountants and IT over the past 10 years.
-I think the way forward is extending the visibility of the reporting outside the immediate use of the financial department to managementâ€"some of that is driven by technology changes," Pearsall said.
Pearsall thinks this is where the maturity is coming--the tapping into that data for wider use within the organisation.
