Filling finance skills gap

Today’s finance function is expected to perform a much broader role and support strategic decision-making as a result of an evolving market landscape and changing expectations from the business. In order to work as an effective partner and advisor in the organisation, the ideal finance professional should be commercially astute, possess an in-depth understanding of the business and have the ability to influence various stakeholders, in addition to having solid technical accounting and finance knowledge.

However, as finance was traditionally a back office function, it is often difficult to find the right talent with such skill sets. This leads to a question that many CFOs have – what is the best way to fill the skills gap in the finance function?

Our latest Greater China CFO report, entitled ‘Filling the Skills Gap in the Finance Function’, was created to provide some insights into this question. To find out more and access the research in full please download the PDF here.

About the research

The report – ‘Filling the Skills Gap in the Finance Function’ – surveyed over 550 senior finance executives across China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and addresses:

• skills and qualities that finance professionals need to develop to work as a successful business partner
• the main reasons CFOs prefer to fill the skills gap by internal upskilling and external hiring
• best practices in developing the current team and effective ways to expand the talent pool 
   

Key findings

75% of CFOs would consider hiring professionals with no relevant industry experience

• Critical thinking & problem solving skills (52%), commercial aptitude (51%), and persuasion & influencing skills (49%) are regarded as the top three areas of skills gap in the finance function
• 72% of CFOs prefer to fill the gap by internal upskilling, while 25% prefer to hire externally to bring in the skills required
• 84% of CFOs consider mentoring and coaching the most effective internal upskilling measure, followed by job rotation and placements (75%)
• In order to expand the talent pool, 75% of CFOs would consider hiring professionals with no relevant industry experience, while 23% would consider candidates with no accounting & finance background