There’s a great deal of buzz about digital transformation, but a fair amount of ambiguity about what that entails. In short, the digital transformation describes a business transition affecting the core of a company’s operations and how it delivers value to its stakeholders. Integrating digital technology into all facets of a business involves more than simply moving to the cloud, it’s a business disruption driving top-down and cross-departmental business strategies.

Of course, the cloud and technology remain critical elements, but the digital transformation journey is often as much about the adoption of new technologies as it is about abandoning long-standing outdated processes and disparate legacy solutions which hold hostage the company’s growth. The pressure is on the C-suite to act.

Forward-thinking organizations on their digital journey are witnessing the roles and responsibilities among their workforce evolve as a result of this journey. At the forefront are today’s finance directors whose primary responsibilities have expanded into reshaping and strengthening their company’s foundations throughout and beyond their technology upgrades. As an enabler of change and strategic business agility, the CFO is becoming the driver of overall operational efficiency. When the rest of the C-level execs are resting easy, the trusty CFO has other concerns.

In mid-sized corporations specifically, it has become commonplace for the IT department to report to the CFO, giving the implicit expectation that the CFO assume, at least in part, some of the CIO duties as well. Chris Tierney of Moore Colson CPAs and Advisors told Forbes in a fall 2018 interview, “Many CFOs now run IT, HR and other non-financial groups.” Whereas the traditional CFO role centered on cost, compliance, and reporting, the role has now become one of strategy and vision which goes well-beyond the finance department. “The CFO is becoming more of a business partner for the CEO than a subordinate,” Tierney explains.

Download the ebook, What Keeps CFOs up at Night below to learn how digital technology is disrupting the role of the CFO.