Accenture has published a report on the role CFOs play in the accelerated digital transformation process, revealing the issue of the “paradox of choice,” increasingly putting executives under pressure
CFOs today hold more decision-making power in accelerated digital transformation: Accenture. Image: pexels.com
A recent report from Accenture revealed that 93% of CFOs feel the responsibility they have today is much greater than in the past.
While 90% of C-suite executives said their organisations are undergoing an accelerated digital transformation, CFOs are often tasked with business-critical decisions, that impact the whole organisation rather than a finance department only. Thus, financial executives are often involved in sustainability initiatives, workplace transformations, and even business model re-invention.
Therefore, understanding the corporate aspects which help to accelerate interconnected transformations is a critical skill for modern CFOs. Since optimising numerous non-related operations and fuelling a company’s growth today requires finance-related technology, data and artificial intelligence (AI), effective reinvention presupposes that CFOs should make complicated, interrelated decisions at speed.
The research shows that 68% of respondents’ organisations conduct three or more transformation initiatives simultaneously. Moreover, 86% of the surveyed executives noted that the time limits for the decision-making process have shrunk.
That is why CFOs today face the phenomenon known as the “paradox of choice.” When a person has too many options to choose from, it causes stress, slows down and complicates decision-making. It is no wonder that 67% of CFOs feel overwhelmed and “paralysed at times” by the number of decisions they have to make and the volume of available choices.
As a result, Accenture recommends:
- prioritising between business-as-usual responsibilities and working on transformation,
- focusing on delivering measurable results from each strategic decision,
- adjusting your leadership style to the organisation’s needs, and
- building a complementary team that can strengthen the CFOs weak points
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