CFO Change in the mobile internet era

U.S. retail giant Target in the mail to a middle school girl to recommend baby supplies and coupons, her father strongly questioned and protested, after receiving an apology, the father found that the daughter really pregnant. Target, a widely circulated story, is thought to be a sophisticated exploration of big data marketing.

However, there may be a risk of data security when collecting information on customers for marketing decisions. Target announced in January 2014 that the massive data theft that occurred three weeks before the holiday shopping season affected 70 million customers, one of the biggest credit card data thefts in the US retail industry so far.

To this end, target was not only spending 61 million of dollars on matters related to the disclosure of information, the net profit in the holiday season in the fourth quarter of last year was reduced by 46%; and after 5 months, the company was under pressure to dismiss the original Ceosteinhafel, Appoint chief financial Officer Johnmulligan to temporarily replace and recruit new CEO.

"In the new era, data and network security are no longer a technical issue, but a risk management issue where the CFO should be actively involved," he said. "ACCA (Chartered Institute of Certified Accountants) Asia-Pacific policy director Zhou Junwei, said the first financial daily.

When the environment is becoming more and more complex, the risk becomes more intense and sudden, to ensure the safety development of the enterprise, KPMG China Donghua Western Chief partner Gao Zhi that "the CFO must have the judgment of risk control and overall understanding, establish the risk management system, grasp the dynamic balance between performance and risk, It is a new challenge to embed the risk concept and culture into the core business of the enterprise. ”

On the other hand, the development of science and technology has derived new business patterns, especially the mobile internet is subverting the traditional business model, which brings great changes to the enterprise's strategic planning and business model, how does the enterprise financial management strengthen the Enterprise fund management and enhance the enterprise performance through the concept and technology of mobile interconnection?

Potential Treasury and efficiency improvement

Many people have a late experience by plane, GE Global vice President, Xiangli, vice president and chief technology officer of China, said that a significant part of the delay may come from a process error, and that the airport is handling large numbers of take-off data, often costing a lot of money; for airlines, the solution, even if it's just a 1% increase ~2% efficiency, the whole industry is also a greater impact.

"Mobile interconnection, large data and other aspects of the impact may greatly enhance the efficiency of some industries in data processing." "In GE, for example, the data produced by machines may be twice times faster than the current consumer data obtained through traditional methods," Xiangli said, but it is a waste that only half of the information is currently being used.

A conservative estimate has been made that, if energy, transportation, public health and other industries can reasonably use and process data, improve efficiency, in the next 15 years, can save 300 billion of dollars.

In fact, because the amount of data and data that can be collected is growing rapidly, this provides a potential repository of information for businesses, and the ability to organize, understand, and analyze large data becomes a core task for companies to make significant investments.

"Financial functions should not be limited to providing year-end reports, but should be the cornerstone of corporate strategy and success," ACCA China affairs director Liang, "Big data is the biggest opportunity that the accounting industry faces in recent years." Using its analytical skills, the Finance department can provide more real-time dynamic variables to senior management. ”

Financial reform and innovation

Traditional financial leaders are considered rigorous, prudent and reliable business partners, but often are kept in a conservative, difficult to change and lack of innovative hats. However, in a changing business environment, real business leaders need to have a keen business acumen, a good spirit of innovation and the ability to embrace change at any time.

In the era of mobile interconnection, how to maintain their core strengths and break through the self, for the financial managers of enterprises is a major challenge.

Haier's financial transformation is a successful example. Haier Group Management Innovation Research Institute Dean Peng introduced, Haier has in 2012 put forward a network stage strategy, this strategy is not only the Internet technology level or information level, more important is the network of organizational structure, make full use of the Internet for financial process change and continuous optimization.

First, the Haier Financial department's organizational structure has undergone a transformation. From the traditional focus on accounting of the organization, transformation into a focus on business organizational structure. Accounting for the financial become a shared center, the efficiency greatly increased, before 1000 people do financial accounting, now as long as 200 people, the remaining 800 people engaged in management accounting business support and value-creating work, such as providing insight into forward-looking opportunities, risk control, The process of innovation and other mechanical systems can not replace the work.

Second, the positioning of changes in the previous financial departments and other functional departments such as HR, the same as the legal business as a cost center, recording and accounting value, but now to become a value-added center, into the operational unit, the CIO to the financial department to provide data platform and information, but the role of information is not simply to pursue the data itself, The goal of obtaining information is to create value.

Third, the relationship between the user and the employee changes, instead of taking orders from leadership decisions or directives, the CIO provides a social and interactive interface that allows employees to understand the needs and ideas of their users anytime, anywhere, while the CFO creates a mechanism that allows employees to make decisions independently, while at the same time defending themselves against risk, Slowly through the network structure and organization, so that employees and users 0 distance, to better create value for users.

Cross-border and forward-looking thinking

Capital, profit, risk control, flow of stability, from the perspective of enterprise management, the previous, the CFO is the most concerned about the role of these traditional responsibilities.

In the mobile internet era, Gao Zhi found that the CFO faced the challenges of enterprise transformation and innovation, including large data collection, interpretation and marketing and risk management applications, cloud computing, shared services, and ERP systems for strategic planning and implementation. What does this mean for the CFO and the financial management of the business?

The change of mobile internet technology support the enterprise to get through the information flow last meter, Kingdee International Software group executive Director, senior Vice President Chen Dengkun that in the financial management of the introduction of mobile internet technology, the CFO from the cumbersome traditional work of the free, Have more time and energy to provide valuable forward-looking data information to the enterprise.

On the other hand, when mobile interconnection, large data and other scale changed the traditional process, Peng that the CFO is no longer a traditional CFO, but should become "E-CFO".

Although financial managers are not software engineers or data scientists, they may have both roles in the future. "The big data will make many financial professionals aware of the importance of change," said Cai Pengpeng, head of future research at ACCA. In the future, the traditional CFO, CTO, and CIO roles will become blurred and positions will become more strategic and forward-looking. Their acceptance of the pace of change will have a huge impact on the potential of companies to make full use of big data. ”

"The impact of technology on enterprises is the flattening of the Internet, which has a profound impact on the relationship between the traditional industry and the enterprises, interpersonal relationships and customer relationships." "Xu, CIO at Shanghai University, also believes that in this process, the collaboration of CIOs, CFOs, COO, CMO and CEOs becomes extremely important."

(Responsible editor: Lvguang)