Reinventing the CFO

The CFO of the future will be the CEO's navigator, anticipating risks and charting the course to new corporate destinations. Today's superstar CFOs don't just retool back office operations. They make the entire organization more effective and profitable--and they are an integral part of their company's future success. This groundbreaking guide offers a proven blueprint for financial professionals making the enormous shift from "number cruncher" to strategist and business partner. Drawn from Coopers & Lybrand's tested Office of the CEO framework, it presents a five-step, in-depth approach that explores the growing role of CFOs and their staffs in business partnership; strategy; performance measurement; strategic cost management, and processes and systems. Urgent changes are under way in the role of the company finance department, provoked by mergers, acquisitions, LBOs, and bankruptcies. . .and, globally, by rapidly emerging markets, falling trade barriers, adn intense competition. At top organizations, Chief Financial Officers are multi-faceted visionaries who work with CEOs to determine the future of the organization. Such "super CFOs," to quote Fortune magazine, "shape strategy. . . and can be worth billions to a company and its shareholders." This pathbreaking book presents a framework for finance professionals to re-evaluate how they can truly add value to their business. Based on Coopers & Lybrand's pioneering Office of the CFO program, it reveals how to move beyond internally focused financial management to provide insights and analysis that deliver competitive value and direction to the organization. Drawing on extensive experience with companies of all sizes in many industries, the authors lead CFOs and their colleagues through five critical steps that reflect the challenges facing them today: Partnering and Integration--redefining the role of Finance and retraining staff to understand business operations and market drivers. Strategy--applying traditional analytical skills and business judgment to the question: Where should our company apply its capital resources? Management Control--producing a new set of strategic measures that business managers can use to anticipate problems and monitor progress. Cost Management--creating an aggressive, long-term, least-cost program that replaces "cost accounting" and continuously drives costs down from within. Systems and Processes--classifying each financial process as "core," "support", or "no added value," and determining the real drivers that affect the company's profitability. Highlighted by proprietary information from Coopers and Lybrand's study of 50 benchmark companies worldwide, as well as illustrative case studies, Reinventing the CFO is essential reading for all financial executives who want their companies--and themselves--to survive and compete in the 21st century.