"In order for finance leaders to guide critical business decisions via data-backed insights and successfully fulfill their widening range of responsibilities, it’s essential to deploy a broader range of talent and technology approaches,” said Christopher Wright, a managing director and global leader of Protiviti’s Business Performance Improvement practice. “Savvy CFOs are leveraging flexible labor models as well as marshaling the cloud, advanced technology tools, and third-party partners to automate as much work as possible in order to meet baseline reporting needs, as well as the increasing expectations of their internal and external stakeholders. Finance leaders’ success will be determined by their ability to source, share, protect and analyze the data they need to help drive enterprise growth, resilience, and innovation.”

The survey findings also show finance leaders in both public and private companies are aware of the need to allocate more time and resources to their organization’s ESG (environmental, social, and governance) reporting. A majority of CFOs and VPs of finance (58%) reported substantial increases organization-wide in the focus and frequency of reporting related to ESG issues. Sixty-eight percent shared that measuring and reporting on ESG risks and issues has become part of their finance team’s role within the last year, and 75% are involved in conversations with senior leaders and boards to develop ESG metrics against which their organization should track progress.

“The groundswell of regulatory actions and stakeholder interest that have quickened in the past year has made it undeniably clear that ESG reporting is set to become another one of the finance department’s many responsibilities,” said Wright. “ESG reporting presents an opportunity for companies to share what they’re doing to deliver sustainable value for their shareholders, while also addressing the interests of their customers, employees, and communities.”

For ambitious lenders and financial leaders, this is very good news. More responsibility, with the right attitude, almost always turns into more opportunity. And speaking of opportunity, did you know that MoneyThumb has a product specifically designed for lenders to help make better informed and quicker lending decisions? PDF Insights is being called The Next Generation of Underwriting Automation. To learn more about PDF Insights from MoneyThumb, follow this link. There you can request a free live demo.