Turning at the crossroads toward the future: The CFO Agenda 2018

In many places, a spirit of optimism and the will to make positive use of the opportunities offered by technological change for their own companies can be felt in the finance departments and management.

The CFO's work environment and style will change significantly, enabling and requiring a focus on strategic analysis.

With predictive analytics tools, many scenarios can be simulated in real time, no longer classically differentiated according to "best, likely, worst", but directly online via the change of variables.

The results can be used for just-in-time decisions in management meetings. Forecasts will no longer be based on past experience alone, but on Big Data analyses.

Electronic bookings, even across company boundaries, will change accounting: Many accounting and filing tasks will either become redundant or automated.

Archiving and document management are electronic; printouts and paper trays will disappear. Programmed bots work 24/7, taking over simple tasks (e.g., filling out forms) or standardized recurring processes.

Where tedious dunning and receivables tracking processes are still widespread in SMEs today, automated receivables tracking and instant payment will have a positive impact on cash flow in the future.

Real-time payments are the norm; seconds after release, the money is in the recipient's account - even at night and on weekends. Payment risks along the supply chain are eliminated. For the treasury of international companies, this could mean shift work, because despite the increasing share of real-time payments, someone has to monitor the payment movements so that immediate action can be taken in the event of system failure, suspected fraud or other frictions.

Self-learning algorithms take on complex tasks, such as text recognition and responses. Financing, placement and trading of securities take place via blockchain platforms.

Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are currently the hype, though they are currently still speculative assets (Ripple's value rose 36,000 percent in 2017). But there are also many serious attempts to use this technology, which make curious about the practical benefits that could come from it.

Supply chains become fully transparent: customers have the ability to look into their suppliers' systems to track delivery status or progress of a joint project.

Today's reporting is being replaced by online self-reporting, which means data retrieval directly in the system and easy ways to generate ad hoc reports as well as real-time analysis.

The prerequisites for these innovations are a modern ERP system as the basis for digital business processes (at Rödl & Partner, it will be the global use of SAP S/4 Hana) as well as the willingness of all employees to critically question and change existing habits and to undergo further training in order to keep pace with technology and prepare for new, higher-value analysis and implementation tasks.

Travel to distant places remains indispensable, because people have a legitimate need to meet on important issues (e.g., closing a deal), and personal contact makes many things easier.

But travel is no longer mandatory; even takeover processes can be carried out digitally. Video conferencing has long been used for all kinds of meetings, and drones can replace a physical inspection of the condition of production facilities.

It's an exciting time for any CFO, and one that they need to see not as a threat, but as a great opportunity to positively shape the future of their own company.