CFOs eye more automation for 2023, says Deloitte survey

Seventy-nine percent of CFOs said their companies plan to embed more automation and digital transformation into operations as they manage through higher costs and concerns about the economy, according to a survey from Deloitte.

Deloitte released its latest CFO Signals survey focused on a bevy of topics including the outlook for 2023. According to CFOs, their top three priorities for 2023 are cost management, cited by 52% of respondents, financial performance, cited by 50%, and both inorganic and organic growth (38% of respondents).

Deloitte's CFO Signals survey for the fourth quarter had 126 CFOs in the US, Canada and Mexico taking part. Seventy-four percent of CFOs surveyed represented companies with more than $1 billion in revenue and one-fifth were from enterprises with annual sales topping $10 billion.

The outlook for 2023 is a moving target as many enterprises are planning for the year based on scenarios based on the economy, risks on multiple fronts and geopolitical instability. Companies are leveraging process mining and execution management for processes such as Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Procurement and Supply Chain to become efficient. Consider:

Year in review and preview:

• Supply chain outlook for 2023 revolves around resiliency, optimization, efficiency and a bit of normalcy

• Celonis customers 2022: Here are the 9 things we learned about process excellence

• Accenture talks supply chain resilience, optimization and outlook for 2023

• IDC's 2023 outlook: Process mining evolves to business value engineering

• Process mining, optimization 2023: Here's what analysts are predicting

• Gartner at Celosphere 2022: The future of process mining will be autonomous

CFOs in Deloitte's survey reflected the need to plan for multiple scenarios and put a premium on efficiency and process excellence.

Key takeaways included:

• 41% of CFOs are feeling pessimistic about their companies’ financial prospects in the fourth quarter, up from 37% in the prior quarter.

• 35% of CFOs rate the current North American economy favorably. Only 2% rated Europe's economy favorably with China at 3%.

• 29% of CFOs believe it's a good time to take greater risks, well below the two-year average of about 50%.

• Among the 71% of CFOs who thought that it was a bad time to take more risk, inflation, recession, rising interest rates and geopolitics were the primary reasons for being cautious.

• 35% of retail and wholesale industry CFOs thought it was a good time to take more risks.

• 74% of CFOs expect talent and labor costs to increase substantially in the year ahead.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief (former)

Larry Dignan is the former Editor in Chief of Celonis Media. Before joining Celonis, he was Editor in Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine.