Simply counting the beans will no longer cut the mustard for Asia's CFOs

Chief financial officers (CFOs) should realise that they need to continue to evolve if their businesses are to compete globally, according to a survey by KPMG International and CFO Asia Research Services.

The survey of 514 CFOs, chief executives, directors and other senior executives outlined the changing nature of the role of CFOs across Asia-Pacific and showed that they remain largely focused on their traditional finance-related tasks.

This is preventing them from fulfilling their evolving role as the CEO's trusted strategic adviser, and also casts doubt over whether their finance teams have the depth of skills to provide their companies with more strategic support.

According to the survey report - Future Perfect: The CFO of Tomorrow - 62 per cent of respondents are still spending more than a quarter of their time on traditional finance tasks, and some 26 per cent spend more than half of their time on such tasks. Almost half of the survey's respondents spend less than a quarter of their time on roles such as decision support and business strategy.

Aaron Lo, a partner in Risk Advisory Services at KPMG China, said it is no longer enough for CFOs to simply extract financial data and provide historical analysis.

'With Asia opening up and foreign companies continuing to expand into China, CFOs here are realising that their role is to provide the CEO with advice on strategy and to lead major initiatives like cost optimisation within an organisation.