The CMAs (Cost Accountants/Certified Management Accountants) play a major role in any organization. The course content for CMA qualification along with practical experience ideally equips a CMA to successfully play the role of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in an Organization.
Fact is that the CFO’s are responsible for too many things in an organization. They must predict the future. They must report on the past. They must analyze the reasons why the actual performance did not meet the expectations. They must deal with bankers, auditors, tax authorities. They must ensure compliance with an ever increasing accounting (and other) regulations. They must seek and manage business process improvements, implement new systems, be the point person on anything remotely finance related. A CFO is responsible for all financial aspect of the organization he is working for. He is responsible for the accuracy and timeliness of his report to his Chief executive Officer (CEO) directly and the Board in general or Executive Committee in particular. Therefore, the CFO needs to look at the big picture when he works for the CEO and reports indirectly to the Board as well as working with officers who report directly to the CEO. such as, Chief Operating Officer (COO).
A CFO sees more of the business than anyone else and understands all of the things that have to be done for the business to succeed.
As the ‘Responsible Officer‘ for a great many factor obligations within the organization, the CFO needs to have compound eyes to see all the aspects of the entity’s operations.
Being on top of all these requires a lot of experience, and a lot of reliance on subordinates to feed a CFO the right information in enabling appropriate decision-making, in addition to a lot of planning, implementing, monitoring, control, review and reporting.
Keeping in view the above mentioned multiple role played by the CFOs, the Cost and management Accountant professionals are perfectly suited for the position of a CFO. It is also pertinent to mention here the phrase used by the Institute of Cost Accountants of India that
“Behind Every Successful Business Decision, There is always a CMA”,
which proves that the CMAs are focused to become a major business decision make as a CFO.
