Study reveals CPOs scope of responsibilities has expanded

New findings from an Accenture poll have revealed that Chief Financial Officers (CPOs) are increasingly taking over responsibility for supply chain and procurement management.

80 percent of senior finance executives said their scope of responsibilities had expanded with these executives now managing projects in procurement (35 percent) and supply chain management (25 percent).

Additional roles included information technology (43 percent), strategy and business development (41 percent) and in human resources (39 percent).

In addition to the expanded scope of responsibilities, 79 percent of the more than 1,000 senior finance executives surveyed across Asia, Europe and North and South America, said they need more flexibility in their operations to more readily respond to ongoing market changes, and 58 percent of them said this increased flexibility would be needed across their operations for the next six to 18 months.

"The economic crisis left the corporate finance function stretched by additional responsibilities and rapidly changing market dynamics that require nimble operations to quickly adapt to new business realities," said Paul Boulanger, managing director of the Accenture finance & performance management service line.

"With corporations operating in a more volatile business environment, finance must be integrated across the enterprise and have a strong grasp of overall business objectives so they can provide guidance and early warning to the C-suite when circumstances dictate a change of course."

As a result, more than three out of four respondents indicated that flexibility is needed in their planning and forecasting, rather than the traditional annual process. More than half of them also said they needed greater flexibility in their cost management (61%), transaction processing (60%), cash management (58 %), performance reporting (58 %), capital expenditure management (56%) and asset management (54%).

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