A survey of 285 senior finance executives from the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Asia, and Australia reports that leaders are focused on shifting top-line growth to bottom-line profits. Translated: CASH is KING.
Finance executives are targeting non-core spending. Highest on the list for cuts: travel and entertainment with 85% of the respondents listing this category as the area they will spend less in the next 12 months, whereas only 37% said this was a focus in last year’s study.
Asked differently, of the ten options presented to sustain spending, 81% of the respondents listed travel as the least important to sustain with nine other categories more important.
When asked about changes in their workforce, 59% of the respondents anticipate a decrease in headcount. Taking a deeper look at the United States responses, the number increases to 71% anticipate a headcount decrease.
While internal meetings, professional development and conference travel will be reduced, 82% respondents indicate they will maintain or even increase travel for meetings with new clients or for business development.
Important steps to take for the future…create new tools to measure performance progress to scrutinize costs and capture greater efficiencies. More than half of the respondents have a renewed focus on metrics or measurements. We all know the saying…you can't manage what you don't measure and you can’t measure what you can’t describe.
The April 2009 CFO survey, in collaboration with American Express, was distributed among senior finance executives at companies in the above-mentioned countries with annual revenue of $500 million to more than $20 billion. They received 285 completed survey responses.
For more information on the story and the report, visit:
http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/pc/2009/bizmonitor.asp
Debi Scholar, CMM, CMP, CTE, CTT
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