Growth and Optimisation
CFO Insights: How to Reposition for Growth in an Uncertain Economy
After years of disruption, many CFOs are facing a crucial question: Where do we go from here?
A growing number of CFOs across Australia and New Zealand are shifting gears—from stabilisation to strategic growth.You’ve already helped your organisation stabilise through uncertainty. Now, the pressure is shifting toward growth, reinvestment, and long-term value creation. But in today’s volatile market, that’s no small task.
According to new research from SAP Concur, 68% of finance leaders say they are focused on growth, yet many admit their current systems and structures are holding them back.
Whether you’re leading finance in a growing small or medium sized business, or steering a complex enterprise, the challenge is the same: how to unlock growth while remaining agile, efficient, and future-ready.
So what’s the opportunity? And what needs to change?
Why growth looks different for CFOs today?
The role of the CFO has fundamentally evolved. It’s no longer just about cost control and compliance. Today’s finance leaders are expected to be:
- Strategic partners in transformation
- Technology champions
- Risk managers with a growth mindset
The path forward requires more than just balance sheets. It requires real-time insights, smarter spend control, and a finance team empowered by automation.
CFO Insights Report: Repositioning for Growth
According to new research from SAP Concur, 68% of finance leaders say they are focused on growth, yet many admit their current systems and structures are holding them back.
So what’s the opportunity? And what needs to change?
Learn moreWhat’s holding Finance teams back?
Before finance can enable growth, it must overcome key blockers, many of which are still deeply embedded in business processes:
- Manual or siloed finance systems
- Lack of spend visibility across departments
- Limited capacity for scenario planning and forecasting
- Reactive rather than proactive decision-making
It’s clear that finance leaders want to make the leap from reactive to strategic. But the numbers tell a deeper story:
- Only 26% of CFOs say their finance team is currently playing a strong strategic role in their business
- Just 30% have complete visibility over spend across their organisation
- 73% struggle to invest in new tools or technologies, citing a lack of budget or internal support
Despite the desire for transformation, outdated systems and siloed processes continue to limit agility and insight, especially in the mid-market.
If these challenges sound familiar, you’re not alone. But the good news is that there’s a roadmap forward.
Turning Finance into a growth engine
In the latest guide “CFO Insights: Repositioning for Growth,” you’ll discover how finance leaders across industries are:
- Driving smarter investments with data-led insights
- Unlocking productivity through process automation
- Aligning spend with business strategy
- Making agile decisions in a fast-moving environment
You’ll also gain access to a framework that helps you identify where your finance team sits on the maturity curve and how to move toward scalable, sustainable growth.
What high-performing CFOs are doing differently
SAP Concur’s research identifies key behaviours of growth-focused CFOs. These leaders are:
- Investing in automation and digitisation to free up time and reduce manual tasks
- Driving greater visibility and control over spending, even across distributed teams
- Collaborating with IT and other functions to accelerate transformation
- Making data-led decisions faster, and with more confidence
The standout takeaway? CFOs who are highly involved in digital transformation are twice as likely to say their business is ready for growth.
Your roadmap to growth starts here
The full CFO Insights guide reveals how finance leaders can reposition their teams to become strategic growth enablers—regardless of company size or industry. Inside, you’ll find:
- Benchmark data on how ANZ CFOs are responding to current challenges
- A framework to assess your team’s finance maturity
- Key focus areas for driving performance, visibility, and impact
Download the Guide: CFO Insights – Repositioning for Growth
This practical resource is designed to help CFOs and finance leaders across all business sizes reposition their teams as strategic growth enablers.
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