I was on a recent webinar hosted by CFO Publishing where they talked about the new role of CFO in corporation. The focus was on how the role of the CFO is now merging with that of the COO and that the move tends to be more of the CFO becoming the COO rather than the COO becoming the CFO.
I believe that the reason for this new trend is the fact that CFOs receive and analyze information from all sectors of a business and must determine the effective use of funds related to all those sectors. So while the COO is responsible for managing the processes that keep the business running, the CFO buys collecting, reconciling and analyzing both the financial and operation information that exposes weakness and strength of business’ overall operations. These insights and business intelligence gleaned by the CFO make them a strategic partner with CEO, board of directors and shareholders.
This is a clear demonstration of one of my favorite mantras: the one with the most accurate and comprehensive information has the control! And that’s why I’m offering a new or alternative definition for ROI – Return on Information.