Fulfilling the future of possible
How retail CFOs can glean insights & grow revenue in modern times
A Deloitte and Google Cloud collaboration
To succeed in today’s competitive and rapidly changing consumer landscape, retail CFOs should shift their mindset and approach. Modern CFOs are finding it tougher to keep their footing, as the cloud of economic uncertainty looms in. It’s increasingly expensive to consume working capital or take on short-term debt in order to build inventory and ensure it gets to where it needs to go. Finance executives are spending enormous amounts of money to invest in infrastructure amidst a time of very real margin-erosion pressures. Moreover, consumers are changing how they interact with brands, and these shifts seem to snap back at fickle and unpredictable rates. Given these factors, how can CFOs forge ahead and drive results across multiple business lines?
The new breed of leaders should not only understand the greater forces at play; they should have the tools, analytics, and operational rigor in place to identify and respond to these forces faster. CFOs will need to be more efficient with how they use money that’s tied up in inventory and will need to spend more wisely across all areas of the business. On a macro and micro level, CFOs should find ways to rapidly identify and respond to shifting performance, preferences, and behavior— or they may find themselves behind the eight ball.
Deloitte recently collaborated with Google Cloud, to create a new report titled, ‘Fulfilling the future of possible: How retail CFOs can glean insights & grow revenue in modern times.’ In this report, we leveraged data from Deloitte’s Global State of the Consumer Tracker and dive deep into the new terms of success for retail CFOs. It also emphasizes why the modern CFOs should look beyond qualitative assessments and performance drivers that are tentative, inefficient, and not institutionalized.
Retail CFOs can lead with strength in uncertain times by getting as smart about the CIO’s business as they are about their chief operator or chief merchant. This will allow them to fulfill the future of possible — right now.
