The MacNair Travel Leadership Blog

Clarity, predictability and strategic insight regarding finance management. These are the top requirements that CEO’s have for their CFO’s, demanding increased visibility from finance executives. In a recent study from KPMG A View From the Top, 63% of the surveyed CEOs from high performing organizations believe that the CFO’s role will increase in significance over the next 3 years, as compared with other C-suite roles.

It’s a company’s worst nightmare: a data security breach. In a moment, confidential, client-specific and your organization’s financial data is compromised by someone hacking into your seemingly secure computer system. A security breach presents a challenge to all businesses; and while we hear about large businesses that are affected (Target, Home Depot, etc.) SME’s are at-risk as well.

Security breaches affect everyone, but no one feels the pain more than the company’s CFO. The Finance Executive’s role is changing, adding IT and further data management functions under their purview. In addition, security breaches take a direct hit to the bottom line. In the Ponemon Institute’s 2015 Cost of Data Breach Study (sponsored by IBM) the total average cost paid by organizations is $6.5 million, with an average cost for each lost or stolen record containing sensitive and confidential information being $217.

The economy continues to improve and because of this, businesses are willing to plan large group meetings or special events to connect with their customers and facilitate collaboration and innovation. The requests for meeting space and group travel is increasing. In 2014, spending on group business travel ($126.5 billion) exceeded spending on individual business travel for the first time since 2008. The BTN Outlook predicts that group trip volume will grow 3.3 percent in 2016, and spending on group business travel is expected to grow 2.7 percent.

Finance Directors are responsible for a myriad of tasks within an organization; from managing accounting functions, providing insight into IT decisions, hiring, firing and strategic planning. With all of these tasks, where should they start? According to results from the 2016 Finance Priorities Survey from the Financial Executives Research Foundation and Protiviti, of the more than 600 finance executives surveyed, 82% indicate that the top priority that will have significant impact within their business is managing margin and earnings performance.

Technology is constantly evolving and sometimes it can be hard to keep up. However, new innovations improve your businesses operations and efficiently allow employees to focus on strategic priorities instead of the management of ongoing business functions.

What are the must-have technologies for finance executives? First, identify the challenges your organization is facing, the desired outcome and then identify a solution that will best benefit your business, allowing you to spend less time on process, and more time on increasing profits or reducing expenses. Below, we’ve gathered our top six technology picks.