McKinsey tips for the strategic CFO – and what's missing (54)

McKinsey finds CFOs increasingly being asked to do strategy work and offers 6 tips for how to up their game. But that's not enough!

I see McKinsey is reporting – based on interviews with successful CFOs – on the increasingly strategic role that CFOs are expected to fulfil. Demands include:

advising on strategy
tackling performance challenges
championing innovations
leading major investments
convening cross-enterprise initiatives

… and McKinsey offers 6 tips on how CFOs can raise their game and offer truly ‘deputy-CEO’ strategic leadership.

But HOW to be a strategic CFO?

Notably missing from these tips is the need for their teams to have a method and tools that can do what’s needed. Something capable of capturing the behaviour and performance of all parts of the business system, as a working whole.

How, for example, do CFOs suppose their teams could create this model for a consumer tech product launch?

This is about 20% of the full model, covering how marketing and price drive customer adoption, word-of-mouth among owners and new customers, experience-curve cost reduction and changing margin on the product, and competitive pricing against a me-too rival.

… all in a simple visual GUI that any analyst can build and any stakeholder can easily follow.

(Hint: a spreadsheet is no use!)
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Categories: : strategy