With change happening all around us, finance officers have to continuously grow their skills and attitudes to cope. Here are the top 4 skills that Financial Officers need to have.
Skills for a Financial Officer
Resilience
The ever changing economic environment, paired with the increasing political uncertainty and rising levels of competition mean that financial officers need to build a resilient mindset. They will be given ever greater levels of responsibility, which ultimately means opportunities will also rise. Financial Officers must have confidence in their self and strategy.
Leadership
The modern Finance Officer is an agent of change within an organisation, being able to align the financial responsibilities with the strategic objectives to drive transformation.. As such a Finance Officer needs an understanding of the core issues affecting each department and the interdependencies between such departments. They are much more heavily involved in driving the organisation’s culture and in turn becoming more engaged with employees to improve efficiency and productivity.
Increasing Technical Skill
Finance Officers who use resource planning solutions such as Sage Enterprise Management are in a better position to increase the success of their organisation, with research showing that a third of CFO’s believe that digital investment transforming their business. Financial Officers will need to work with the latest technologies to build data driven decision making skills, and become self sufficient.
Cloud expertise
The cloud is becoming more popular for organisations as it allows individuals to share work across teams. Financial officers will need to utilise the cloud and its tools, for productivity benefits, compliance requirements, and IT cost reduction.
By combining the ability to manage various functions in a business, along with learning new technologies, financial officers can position themselves at the top of their field, as well as benefiting their business greatly.
