Take a good, long look at your chief financial officer (CFO). Notice anything different? If not, you will. The role is evolving. Spurred on by regulatory compliance demands and equipped with powerful data warehouse tools, the corporate scorekeeper is transforming into the company's chief information gatherer, supplying the organization with crucial financial data the business can—and must—use to stay competitive.

Today's CFOs are extending their reach by streamlining core finance operations, providing timely, insightful reporting to business managers throughout the organization, and helping the chief executive officer (CEO) manage enterprise performance. In addition, they're consolidating, simplifying and, in some cases, outsourcing routine finance functions. This frees them up to get hands-on with the data, using it to both build corporate strategy and enable fact-based decision making across the business.

Of course, while regulatory compliance—having driven up the cost of finance for the first time in more than a decade—continues to be a primary concern of any CFO, even the focus of compliance is changing. Most CFOs are wrapping up initial efforts to document business processes as required by compliance efforts. With that accomplished, many are sifting through what they're discovering to be a wealth of documented data and using it to improve processes across the enterprise.

Beyond streamlining their own core finance operations for maximum efficiency, CFOs are evolving into strategic business partners who help managers understand the financial implications of their choices. Chief financial officers are accomplishing this by relying heavily on the enterprise data warehouse (EDW) to deliver broad-based decision support, adjust quickly to change and bolster management reporting with consistent and auditable enterprise key performance indicators (KPIs). They're also leaning on their EDWs to integrate financial and operational data, a crucial capability for effective performance management efforts.

As the role of finance continues to evolve, CFOs at leading companies will help lead the search for profitable growth. Ask anything less of your CFO and you run the risk of losing profitable business to your competition. This series of articles is designed to show you how the role of finance is changing and how you can better leverage your financial and operational data to stay ahead of the competition. T

Illustration by Randy Pollak

� Teradata Magazine-September 2006