CFOs and their teams are parlaying their unique perches in corporate organizational charts with the emergence of AI and other tools to lead the growing use of technology-enabled strategic foresight and planning.
The finance team has long stood alone with full access to all the data and all the people in any firm (human resources has access to employees but not the numbers). Now finance professionals also have a full toolkit to help them digest all that information and think like futurists—not only to manage risk but also to test potential opportunities. In addition to AI, new tools include robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, predictive analytics, and other digital technologies.
This work is increasingly carried out by financial planning and analysis (FP&A) units that report to the CFO. “The technology can turn them into superheroes,” says Julio Martínez, co-founder and CEO of Abacum, a multinational FP&A software platform based in New York.
