TECHNOLOGY

Q. Reactive vs predictive reporting: what are the pros and cons of each? The information you get from reactive reporting is quite important because it gives finance teams a clear, factual view of what happened. You need this historical record for financial accountability. The issue is that by the time you’ ve identified an issue, the financial impact may already have occurred. Predictive reporting however gives CFOs the opportunity to identify emerging risks or spot operational issues before they become more expensive problems. The challenge with predictive reporting is trust. A prediction is only valuable if you understand the data and operational context behind it. If your information is fragmented across different systems, you risk making predictions based on an incomplete picture of the business. We need to use the two together: using real-time operational data to understand what’ s happening today, historical data to understand why it happened, and predictive capabilities to determine next steps. That’ s when finance can move from reporting on the business to actively helping shape better business outcomes.

Q. How vital is data to the Office of the CFO? Data is absolutely fundamental to the Office of the CFO, but today the challenge is less about access to data and more about making sense of it. Most large financial institutions have enormous amounts of data, often scattered across different systems and business functions. For CFOs, this data becomes more valuable when you can connect it to the processes behind the numbers. If cash flow changes, for example, you don’ t just want to see the number you want to understand what’ s driving the change and where the issue originates. This is also important when adopting AI. AI needs accurate data, but it also needs the business context around that data to make reliable decisions. For the CFO, having that trusted operational foundation is critical to improving forecasting and ultimately making faster, better-informed decisions.

Q. Is automating decisions the future, along with AI? I think we’ ll absolutely see more decisions automated, but I don’ t think the future is about removing people from decisionmaking altogether. It’ s about being much more deliberate about which decisions can be automated and where human judgement still adds value. Finance teams make thousands of repeatable decisions every day. If AI has the right operational context, many of those decisions can be made faster and more consistently, freeing people

96 November 2026