That belief is firmly held in Brazil with 82% of respondents to a survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by SAP. This is the highest share among all countries surveyed and significantly higher than elsewhere in Latin America (66%) and globally (54%). They strongly agree that the finance function should facilitate collaborative enterprise planning across the company to ensure operational plans are aligned with financial and strategic plans.
82% of respondents in Brazil compared with 54% globally strongly agree that finance should facilitate collaborative enterprise planning. This is the highest share among all countries surveyed.
Interestingly enough, 70% of finance professionals in Colombia and 80% in Mexico share this belief, agreeing strongly about the power of finance to promote collaborative enterprise planning. Contrast this with over half (56%) of finance professionals who strongly endorsed this same sentiment globally, and it seems clear that Latin American CFOs are placing considerable emphasis on their strategic contributions.
Steering in action
In a few separate responses, finance professionals in Brazil underscored the importance of a strategic role for CFOs. When asked, for instance, to name the most important non-traditional skills for a finance executive of the future, 20% of respondents chose understanding business strategy and operations, relative to 15% globally. What’s more, 66% strongly agreed that they feel personally empowered to drive strategic decisions across business functions in their own organisations.
Not surprisingly then, our survey reveals that Brazil’s finance professionals are significantly more likely than those in Latin America or globally to work with procurement and supply chain to manage inventory costs and with the operations function to manage vendor management costs.
When compared with finance teams elsewhere, CFOs and their direct reports in Brazil rate their interactions quite highly and have been successful in forging important collaborations with a number of outside functions. Nearly half of finance executives in Brazil deemed current collaborations with management very effective (48% v 38% globally). Similarly, a higher percentage of Brazil’s finance executives than on average globally characterised as very effective their collaborations with legal/compliance (44% v 33%), customers (54% v 39%) and CFO peers (54% v 41%).
Such collaboration enables CFOs and their direct reports to provide the business with strategic direction. The top benefit they say is better strategic investment planning, but more accurate financial forecasts and better understanding of intransigent costs are also important benefits. In recognising these benefits, finance executives in Brazil seek greater involvement in determining office space requirement and design with HR; assessing effectiveness of marketing campaigns with marketing and sales; and quality management of products along the supply chain with procurement and supply chain. These emphasise that the mandate goes further than just planning, and includes driving operational decisions.
Brazil sees the highest rate of respondents who feel that identifying new business opportunities is a top benefit of collaboration (22% v 12% elsewhere globally). To support this, finance executives are keen to be more involved in identifying evolving consumer preferences with marketing and sales.
Overcoming obstacles
The survey findings seem to suggest that while collaborative enterprise planning is widely viewed as an aspiration for Brazilian finance teams, they face some practical impediments to achieving this goal both inside and outside their organisations. Among the greatest external difficulties they face in handling their day-to-day activities is managing unexpected changes to financial forecasts, cited by half of respondents, relative to 41% globally. The second most commonly listed challenge is internal and arguably also falls under the rubric of strategy: identifying how to align strategic, financial and operational plans towards common objectives, at 42%.
Collaboration is a vital tool to address both challenges, yet incompatible processes and digital systems is the biggest impediment, according to finance executives in Brazil. Respondents suggest that technology and automation are poised to provide some much-needed relief. The technology most commonly cited for enhancing business collaboration across functions was real-time information sharing on key activities at 44% versus 33% globally. The second most popular responses—again, at higher rates than occurred globally are predictive analytics for strategy development and decision support and automation of day-to-day activities using artificial intelligence and digital voice assistants.
32% of Brazilian finance teams expect that five to ten years from now, more than half of that role’s activities will be automated (relative to 22% who said the same globally).
Within the next few years, technology and automation are widely expected to alter the daily routine of CFOs; in fact, 32% of Brazilian finance teams expect that five to ten years from now, more than half of that role’s activities will be automated (relative to 22% who said the same globally).
However, even if automation were to free up 30-50% of the finance team’s time, most finance executives in Brazil would not reduce the size of their teams. Most would spend additional hours on forward-looking priorities: 60% would devote more time to training the team on more advanced financial/technical skills, while 56% would create a taskforce to focus on strategic projects. The latter would be directed at identifying more strategic investment opportunities and operational strategy development, building on a strong existing foundation of collaboration with the function.
