CFO 4.0 — Impact of digitalization on the activities of the Chief Financial Officer

The digital transformation is changing everyday life in more and more companies. New employees are selected via tablet or are no longer hired at all because robots take over their function, social networks play a major role in communication with customers, and interested parties participate in a company's innovation process via crowdsourcing. The upheavals are serious, but their impact is still underestimated far too often. Companies of all sizes and from all industries are affected by digitization. While certain sectors, such as telecommunications or media, have already undergone fundamental change, others, such as corporate finance, are only just beginning.

What they all have in common is that, as a result of the new technologies, they have to subject their business models to a fundamental examination and rethink their own position, organization and associated professional roles. On the one hand, digitization promotes innovation and creates attractive growth opportunities; on the other, it can quickly become a threat to traditional value creation approaches.

In other words, if you want to meet customer needs in the long term and at the same time stay ahead of the competition, you need to proactively seize the opportunities offered by digital transformation. Only in this way can companies maintain their competitiveness, reduce costs and increase efficiency. One of the biggest problems is that classic business models can hardly be flexibly transferred to new and innovative business opportunities. The pressure to find an agile strategy for digitization and the development of innovative, digital products and services is correspondingly high.

Digitization does not replace a successful core business, but supports it.