Top Priorities for CFOs in 2025
As we come into the new year Padraig Murphy, Account Manager at Storm, outlines some of the top priorities for CFO’s in 2025.
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Last year we saw some interesting trends across the world of finance, with a key focus on modernising finance systems, exploring artificial intelligence (AI) and increased emphasis on sustainability. Although some of these trends will continue into next year, CFOs will be operating in a somewhat more complex environment with mounting pressure from issues surrounding data security, AI governance and new ESG regulations, to name just a few. Technology can help CFOs better prepare for the challenges to come in the year ahead, with 58% of CFOs reporting they’re spending more time on technology investment and implementation compared to a year ago. Below we explore some of the key focus areas for CFOs for 2025, including some highlighted in Gartner’s Top Priorities for CFOs in 2025. We also touch on some of the digital solutions that can help finance teams combat the challenges to come.
Data Governance
The adoption of artificial intelligence across organisations will be crucial for teams to stay productive, agile and competitive in the coming years, and finance teams are no exception. However, 35% of CFOs say data quality is a key inhibitor for AI adoption in finance, according to Gartner. It’s crucial for businesses to enhance the governance of their data and analytics to maintain high data quality and avoid issues that could impede AI adoption, or even result in security and compliance concerns. That’s why data governance will be a key area of concern for CFOs in 2025. CFOs will need to collaborate with teams to build a proper data governance strategy, defining clear roles and responsibilities. It’s important to establish the necessary policies and procedures for managing and storing data. For example, finance teams using SharePoint as their document management solution can use features that control who can access certain content, as well as how long the content is stored for, ensuring sensitive documents remain protected and are not retained for longer than necessary. For more advanced governance and compliance capabilities, organisations could consider adopting a solution like Microsoft Purview, which provides businesses with a central system to manage the governance, compliance and security of their entire data estate.
AI Adoption
Whether it’s in data analysis, process automation or financial reporting, finance teams are streamlining processes and driving productivity with AI-powered solutions. In fact, Gartner reports that the use of AI in finance has almost doubled in the past year. CFOs will continue to prioritise AI adoption in 2025, seeking new ways to reduce the manual workload of their teams and maximise business output. According to a survey by Gartner, the AI use case that has had the greatest impact is intelligent process automation, meaning this could be a key investment priority for CFOs next year. Intelligent process automation combines robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) to automate repetitive tasks such as document processing and data entry. CFOs who want to unlock the full benefits of AI may consider implementing a solution like Power Automate, a robotic process automation platform that drives automation using the power of low-code and AI. Finance teams can automate tasks like processing invoices, extracting and analysing data, scheduling payments, reconciling accounts, payroll and generating financial reports.
Another solution helping businesses harness the power of AI to automate and streamline financial processes is D365 Business Central. AI-assistant Copilot in Business Central transforms bank reconciliation by analysing bank statements within Business Central, matching the transactions and proposing entries for transactions that weren't automatically matched. This can help finance teams reduce manual time and effort associated with reconciling bank statements, as well as the risk of human error. Users can also ask Copilot questions about their financial data to find the information they need quickly and even uncover insights that can support decision-making.
This means teams can reduce the time required to carry out manual tasks and regain valuable work hours to be spent on more complex financial processes.
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Objectives
Recently implemented and continuously evolving EU sustainability legislation, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, now requires companies to report on the environmental, social and governance impact of their operations on an annual basis. Although organisations may appoint a designated team responsible for sustainability issues, in many cases it will be the responsibility of finance teams to collect, manage and report ESG data, meaning sustainability will remain a key priority for CFOs in 2025. A modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution like D365 Business Central can help finance teams tackle ESG reporting with built-in features to help track and manage ESG data. Business Central enables users to organise sustainability data more effectively by recording and calculating key information including energy consumption, waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions according to the 3 different scopes defined by the EU, giving finance teams a comprehensive view of their ESG data and streamlining reporting processes.
If you would like to learn more about how your business can better prepare for what’s to come in 2025 with digital solutions, get in touch with a member of our team today.
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