Coupa's inaugural Strategic CFO survey reveals
the tradeoffs CFOs are making between cost-cutting and
profit-building strategies to remain competitive
SAN
MATEO, Calif., Feb. 14,
2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The imminent threat of a
recession is increasing worry among CFOs, forcing them to make
short-term business decisions that may significantly impact growth
levers for the long-term.
The priority concern is hitting sales forecasts in the next 6-12
months (91%), as well as declining profitability and margins (42%),
meeting payroll (39%), and going bankrupt/running out of cash
(36%), according to new survey data from Coupa Software (NASDAQ:
COUP), the leader in Business Spend Management (BSM).
CFOs will continue to face mounting hardships among today's
economic uncertainty and increasingly look to cut costs. Many have
already resorted to layoffs, despite 86% saying layoffs are a last
resort to cut costs and 87% recognizing layoffs create long-term
issues. That's leading CFOs to prioritize alternate cost-cutting
measures this year, including increasing the price of products and
services sold (38%), enforcing stricter spend rules (33%), and
renegotiating supplier contracts (32%).
CFOs Can't Cut What They Can't See
Without a granular level of visibility across a company's entire
spend activity, CFOs will not be able to make informed cost-cutting
decisions that allow them to stay competitive. Nearly half (46%) of
CFOs surveyed suffer from a lack of visibility. They point to
critical blockers within their organizations:
- 57% have spend data siloed across multiple systems.
- 44% have extremely labor-intensive processes to gather
data.
- Less than half (46%) have proactive and predictive financial
forecasting and risk management tools, indicating a majority are
ill equipped to plan for the future.
"Economic volatility calls for a strategy of managing costs
intelligently, rather than hurrying to cut costs reactively. The
ability to do this hinges on having a wealth of data that is
accurate and timely to inform decision making," said Tony Tiscornia, Coupa CFO. "Resilient companies
use intelligent spend data to execute in the present with urgency,
but in a way that reduces the risk of unintended long-term negative
consequences."
CFOs Turn to Automation to Boost Profitability
Despite the need to cut costs, CFOs recognize the importance of
investing in automation to reach a state of financial maturity to
combat disruption and achieve long-term success.
"Automation technologies allow CFOs to chart a course through
the storm and emerge stronger," continued Tiscornia. "With a
potential recession on the way, it's absolutely critical CFOs
optimize financial health by equipping their organization to
respond faster and more strategically to disruption. It's how CFOs
will help their companies survive a recession and come out of it
ready to accelerate growth."
Read the full report: The Strategic CFO: Maintaining a
Competitive Edge in Uncertain Times.
Methodology
The survey was conducted among 600 CFOs and finance leaders
(SVPs and higher who report to the CFO) in businesses with over
$500M in revenue across Canada, the US, UK, Ireland, France, and Germany. The survey was carried out online
with an email invitation between November and December 2022 by Wakefield Research.
About Coupa Software
Coupa is the cloud-based Business Spend Management (BSM)
platform that unifies processes across supply chain, procurement,
and finance functions. Coupa empowers organizations around the
world to maximize value and operationalize purpose through their
business spend. To learn more about Coupa, visit coupa.com or
follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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SOURCE Coupa Software
