Integrating Multiple Data Sources Challenges CFOs

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Data deluge

Not only is the amount of data that CFOs need to analyze increasing rapidly, most of the systems that contain that data are not well integrated.

Nearly one-third of CFOs anticipate a 26% to 50% increase in the amount of data their teams will have to manage over the next five years, while more than a third anticipate an increase of more than 50%.

Just over a third (38%) of CFOs said their organizations have been able to achieve a single source of truth, with another 45% saying this is a work in process.

Nearly half (47%) manually aggregate data, while 32% rely on ERP applications, 27% have a business intelligence application for accessing a data warehouse and 24% have done custom integration of apps. Only 5% of CFOs gave their team a top ranking in integrating this data.

Just less than a third (30%) are managing data from five or more source systems. A full 69% of CFOs surveyed believe that keeping data in silos is one of the biggest financial mistakes that most companies make.

A full 65% of CFOs cited “accuracy and integrity of the data itself” as the most or second most important characteristic of the data, while 42% of CFOs pointed to the “timeliness/shelf life of data” as the most or second most important categories.

Sales data came out on top, with 58% ranking it as the most important or second most important type of non-financial data.

Only 17% of CFOs stated their team’s top-line forecast of actual results was within 1% to 3% on a regular basis. A full 41% said they miss their top-line forecasts by 7% or more and 4% said they miss it by 26% or more.

A full 66% of CFOs reported that the chief operations officer (COO) is the executive they work with most closely besides the CEO. HR received the second highest ranking at 34%, followed by the CIO at 30% and the CTO at 29%.

The majority (54%) of CFOs do make use of company-wide key performance indicators, while 33% said this is a work in progress and 13% reported not having any company-wide KPIs.

The vast majority of CFOs cited competition (81%) as the biggest risk, followed by economic uncertainty in their region (71%), product obsolescence (50%) and interest rates/inflation (44%).

Factors CFOs said they consider in their planning include interest rate increases (48%), expected merger and acquisition activity (38%) and cyber-security (32%). Nearly 64% believe the U.S. presidential elections will have little-to-no impact on their company’s business and 42% believe the elections will have very little-to-no impact on the global economy. However, CFOs pointed to political volatility (29%) and China’s current economic situation (26%) as higher concerns.