| | DECEMBER 20199WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF CFO AS A KMP UNDER COMPANY'S ACT 2013, CFOs NOW HAVE AN INCREASED PERSONAL STAKE AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR REGULATORY ADHERENCE IN THE COMPANIESformation so as to contribute to sustainability of business.The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company, due to his pivotal position and significant responsibility, is expected to play a critical role in the changed en-vironment. In the traditional role, he was responsible only for book keeping and recording debits and credits. In the 21st century, global-ly, this role has been transformed to include aspects such as risk management, strategy building, developing business models, busi-ness planning and others. Emerging technologies require today's CFOs to engage deeply with the business operation leaders to understand the benefits of these new capabilities, the used cases, the investments required, and of course, how to measure the value created. CFOs feel rising pressure to leverage new technology, such as cloud computing, robotic pro-cess automation and various an-alytical tools, to improve the per-formance of their organizations. The introduction of Digitalisation frees-up time from administrative tasks to further focus on analysis and insight generation to shape future desired outcomes. While CFOs are not required to hold de-grees in Computer Science or IT, they must keep themselves flow-ing and updated with the trends, as the technological developments are here to stay.Tomorrow's CFOs and their finance functions will need to be very adept in leveraging this tech-nology. It means less time on re-cording & verifying the numbers, and more time making the data connections and explaining the number implications to the busi-ness ­ applying the finance lens on decision making. Technology is evolving very quickly, providing the potential for CFOs to reconfigure finance processes and drive business in-sight through big data and an-alytics. The CFO forms part of the think tank of Top manage-ment and his views are crucial to make informed key decisions. In many companies now, CFOs are elevated as CEO too due to their business knowledge.Today, finance function is even more important and every activi-ty of the organisation is associat-ed with finance. The introduction of technology frees-up time from routine tasks to further focus on analysis and insight generation to shape future desired outcomes. CFOs can spot new opportunities and new profit centers, and can identify groups delivering greater values to the organisation.The regulatory environment of today has also become strict-er. The compliances and data are closely monitored, and it will only stretch further. With the in-troduction of CFO as a KMP un-der Company's Act 2013, and the further growing recognition they now have an increased personal stake in, and accountability for, regulatory adherence in the com-panies. So, keeping pace with the changing environment, it is im-perative to have a good hand in contemporary technology. The requirement of time is new generation CFOs for upcoming time, who can break stereotypes, welcome new ideas and have the spirit of innovation. New demands require investing in right tal-ent which has acquaintance with modern day tools so the CFO also needs to work closely with the HR department. Since the com-petition is global and this tech-nological shift is not going to be reversed, the visionary CFOs un-derstand that they not only need to manage complexity in all of its forms, but also acknowledge it as an opportunity. In conclusion, I would like to say Sky is the limit for dy-namic CFOs in todays Digital World, and every problem is an opportunity. S Kathir Kamanathan
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