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The new year’s bottom line CFOs in the industry talk about what they expect their recently merged firms to accomplish in the new year. P R O F I L E
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent W hether merging companies or systems, CFOs are gearing up to combine talent, technology, and forces to stay on top in the year ahead. STRENGTH IN NUMBERS. Andrew Goldbaum, CFO of Thornton Tomasetti (New York, NY), a 1,200-person international engineering firm, says that following the firm’s recent merger with Weidlinger , one challenge is to leverage the nu- merous revenue synergies that that have been identified to accelerate revenue growth. “With our added depth and breadth of our services, we expect to be able to say ‘yes’ to clients more often. Our practice and regional teams are working closely together to develop both one and five-year plans to continue to grow our business at double-digit pace.” “With our added depth and breadth of our ser- vices, we expect to be able to say ‘yes’ to clients more often,” he says. “Our practice and region- al teams are working closely together to develop both one and five-year plans to continue to grow our business at double-digit pace.” Goldbaum wants Thornton Tomasetti to contin- ue to be the global driver of change and innova- tion in the industry, and the merger with Wei- dlinger has expanded its innovative capabilities and is enabling it to accelerate innovation and the commercialization of this innovation. While Goldbaum finds the softening economy in China and its reduction of new construction to be a bit of a challenge, he is confident that they
THE FUTURE OF FINANANCE Forbes Business asked several finance leaders to share their predictions for 2016 in terms of where finance departments are headed. Here is a sampling of replies: “CFOs will need to combine a high competence work force with the new era of being data smart by designating digitalization as a main part of their business strategy. Finance professionals will have to master data navigation and use data mining tools to process big data volumes. Only companies with finance staff that can deploy advanced analytics will be able to succeed in a digitalized economy, where competition will be defined by better, data-driven decisions.” —Nilly Essaides, director, financial planning and analysis, The Association for Financial Professionals “Finance leaders understand that influencing future performance – not just reporting on past performance – is their key mandate. In 2016, finance teams will be increasingly driven to convert their position of financial- information stewardship to leadership in information-driven innovation. They will be called upon not only to champion the effective use of sophisticated analytics to support decision making, but also to harness the power of powerful social media and crowd-sourcing platforms to generate competitive advantage.” —Celina Rogers, vice president and editorial director, CFO Publishing “The future of finance will involve closer collaboration between the CFO and CMO as customer focus and brand become the key drivers of differentiation and profitability. Secondly, the CFO will assume a greater responsibility for analytics in the organization as data-driven decision making is at the heart of digital transformation.” —David Williams, vice president, global product marketing, analytics, SAP “Finance ‘at your fingertips’ is the future of finance. Finance professionals will be increasingly connected at anytime, anywhere. To support this, enterprises will make significant advances in adopting digital platforms across the value chain (not just ERP). Robotics, and automated point solutions will enhance core ERP capability, with a focus on faster time to market cloud solutions. With automation removing process barriers ‘soft close’ will become common – with the associated transparency particularly benefiting treasury.” —Graham Dewar, partner, European Finance Transformation
See CFOs, page 8
THE ZWEIG LETTER Janu
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