For decades, the office of the CFO was seen primarily as the domain of the scorekeeper. The finance team meticulously tracked results, managed the books, and reported on what had already happened. They were the umpires of the business — tasked with the critical, but ultimately reactive job of determining the score.
But in today’s landscape of relentless disruption and economic uncertainty, that role is changing significantly. The modern CFO is in a unique position to transcend the role of historian and become a key architect of the company’s future. It’s a fundamental shift from reporting the news to making it.
The hidden costs of looking backward
To appreciate the significance of this shift, one must first understand the limitations of the traditional finance model. When finance teams spend most of their time manually gathering and reconciling data from disconnected spreadsheets and legacy systems, their focus is inherently stuck in the past. By the time reports are finalized — often weeks after a period closes — the insights are already stale, and the opportunity to act has likely vanished.
This operational drag does more than just slow things down; it creates a "trust tax" on the entire organization. When data is fragmented and unreliable, leaders instinctively add buffers to their analysis, hedging against potential errors. This lack of confidence erodes decision quality and delays action. Furthermore, it drains your most valuable asset: your talent. Highly skilled finance professionals become mired in low-value data wrangling instead of engaging in the strategic analysis they were hired to perform.
From the press box to the field
So what does it mean to “call the plays" in practice? It means using financial and operational data to provide the forward-looking guidance the business needs to make critical decisions in real-time. The goal is to empower leaders with a winning game plan.
When finance leaders are empowered to be strategists, they help the business answer its most important questions:
- Which markets should we enter next?
- Where should we accelerate our investments to drive growth?
- How can we optimize our resources to improve profitability?
Answering these questions requires a deep understanding of the business and the data that drives it. It requires the ability to connect disparate parts of the organization and see the bigger picture. This is what it looks like when finance moves from the press box to the field.
The right tools for a new game plan
Of course, this strategic transformation can’t happen by willpower alone. To step into this expanded role, CFOs need to equip their teams with the right capabilities. The ability to “call the plays” is built on a foundation of trusted, real-time data and a platform that connects planning across the entire enterprise. Without this, finance leaders remain stuck in the old paradigm. Having the right solutions, having the right access to data, and being able to drive the business on multiple fronts is where CFOs really make a difference.
When you have a single source of truth — one that connects finance, sales, supply chain, and workforce — you break down the silos that create friction and mistrust. You create a common language for the business, ensuring everyone is working from the same set of facts. This fosters a culture of collaboration and accountability, giving the CFO the credibility and insight needed to guide the business not just through the next quarter, but through the next five years.
