In a survey about top priorities, corporate finance leaders and teams in the retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry ranked data security and privacy, enhanced data analytics, process improvement and challenges with regulations at the top of their list.
Upended by the pandemic, the retail and CPG industry is confronting a mix of macroeconomic, strategic and operational risks that continues to threaten the performance of their businesses. Internally, finance leaders are being called upon to address many of these prevailing issues, while supplying the data, and enabling the infrastructure, to help their organizations grow and retain customers, and also build deeper long-term brand relationships with them. Protecting the data and privacy of these consumers is a key imperative, particularly in an environment of growing cyberattacks.
As stewards of enterprise data and analytics, and as producers and purveyors of much of that data, retail and CPG finance leaders are also eager to obtain and analyze complete and timely data from suppliers, vendors and other external sources to enable forecasting and planning activities. Other priorities include addressing supply chain challenges, including sourcing and enhancing third-party risk management of suppliers, and increasing transparency of their sustainability practices as it relates to environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks.
The recent insights paper, “Global Finance Trends Survey: Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods,” delves deeper into these prevailing issues and more. A related infographic also captures key highlights of the survey.
Further insights and our full 2021 Finance Trends Survey are available here.
