Finance professional role to become analyst instead of relationship manager
London, 22 November 2018 – Relationship management or service orientation are not the most important skills for finance professionals to develop. Rather it is all about how developed their analytical ability. The FinTech Barometer from fintech company Onguard shows that these new skills must be developed in order to add value in the future.
30% of CFOs and finance professionals put analytical skills at the top of the list of important skills. Adaptability comes close at 27%. Relationship management came in third place (16%), while only 6% cited leadership qualities. The CFOs surveyed indicated that they consider learning to a programme (12%) even more important than the development of service orientation (5%).
The importance of data
New technological developments and the acquisition and storage of data are rapidly advancing. So much so that 43% of finance professionals expect financial service providers to transform into IT companies in ten years’ time. The availability and use of data are important for companies with data playing a role in 93% of organisations. Therefore, it is not surprising that 45% of finance professionals believe big data will impact the industry the greatest. These aspects could explain why CFOs and other finance professionals expect the need for skills development in the future, particularly in the field of analysis.
Marieke Saeij, CTO at Onguard, highlights the importance of these skills. “We are seeing more and more companies looking to collaborate with partners to continuously deliver increased value to customers. Through these partnerships, platforms are being created that in turn provide a wealth of extra data. Companies can use this data to make sound business decisions. In addition, it is important for finance professionals who are in daily contact with clients to be able to analyse this data. In doing so, they provide an extra service. For example, through data, finance professionals can find out the customer’s preferred communication channel and payment method for their invoices. Data analysis by a finance professional therefore creates a lot of added value within organisations.”
