Recent global research shows CFOs are optimistic about revenue growth potential for their organizations, as well as opportunities for ecosystem development. Their top artificial intelligence (AI) priorities are integrating technology with their existing enterprise IT systems and business processes as well as equipping the organization’s workforce to realize AI’s full value proposition. Their top near-term risk concerns include changes in global markets and trade policies, cyber threats and increases in labor costs. And their top near-term investment priorities are supply chain management and business process improvements.
These big-picture findings are among the notable takeaways from the CFO results in the latest Executive Perspectives on Top Risks and Opportunities Survey from Protiviti and NC State University’s ERM Initiative. Overall, the results show that CFOs remain bullish on growth amid a challenging business climate and concerns over geopolitical turmoil and its impact on global markets.
Where do CFOs see the greatest growth opportunities for their organizations?
Finance leaders have a bullish outlook on revenue growth and ecosystem partnership expansion. For both, a foundation for success lies in finance-developed data.
Today’s CFO is seen as the organization’s primary purveyor of data—both financial and non-financial. Data-driven insights delivered by the finance team enable the enterprise to pursue revenue growth along with ecosystem development, including strategic alliances and partnerships that will accelerate transformational AI and other technological deployments and drive efforts to enter new markets and geographies.
Strategic alliances and partnerships, while potentially lucrative to both parties, can be tricky to navigate. While preferred supplier agreements are relatively straightforward, intricate joint ventures can introduce complex financial, accounting and economic considerations. Relationships with all third parties must be subjected to an appropriate level of due diligence and ongoing monitoring across cybersecurity, data privacy, financial performance and reporting, and more. Along with the mandatory reporting obligations around ecosystem development and geographic expansion activities, CFOs must ensure their C-suite colleagues and the board understand the economics and financing underlying these arrangements.
What are the organization’s most significant AI-related challenges?
In addition to integrating AI within the enterprise and equipping the workforce to realize AI’s value proposition, CFOs also see managing data-related cybersecurity exposures as the biggest AI challenges.
These challenges are strategic in nature (keeping pace with competitors), value oriented (measuring and maximizing returns on AI investments) and risk focused (AI-related data privacy and cybersecurity risks)—much like the nature of the CFO’s role itself. They also underscore the AI mandate for the CFO, namely striking the right balance between leading the rapid deployment of AI to remain competitive in the marketplace and avoid fear of missing out (FOMO) while also achieving the return on investment (ROI) promised by providers and expected by key stakeholders.
In addition, as AI adoption progresses, CFOs must strengthen third-party risk oversight over AI tools—ensuring vendors can operate responsibly and securely in an AI-enabled ecosystem—while also investing in the fundamental capabilities that drive ROI, including modernized technology and a workforce equipped to deploy, use and collaborate with AI.
What are the most significant short-term risk concerns for CFOs?
Finance leaders view overall economic concerns, changes in global markets and unpredictable trade policies, cyber threats and third-party risks among their greatest near-term risks.
Driven by persistent inflation, uncertain interest rates, fluctuations in energy markets, and intensifying regional conflicts, as well as unpredictable global trade policies, economic volatility tops their list—not a surprise considering the current uncertainty in the geopolitical landscape. Of note, data from Protiviti’s latest global survey of CFOs indicates that nearly three-fifths of finance leaders report material impacts from trade policy uncertainty on forecasting accuracy, reporting requirements and profitability.
Cyber threats, and by extension third-party risks, continue to demand the CFO’s attention. On the cyber front, third parties as well as fourth and nth parties remain significant risks, particularly as data volumes increase with growing AI adoption. Furthermore, recent high-profile attacks are evidence that bad actors continue to target large, multinational suppliers whose outages inflict maximum financial damage across their extensive customer base.
More broadly, potential third-party issues stem from vendors’ use of AI—specifically, risks posed to the organization’s customers and clients. This requires integrating AI use into vendor due diligence, sourcing, onboarding and monitoring activities. In addition, amid current economic volatility, CFOs must ensure that the financial performance and health of strategic suppliers are monitored rigorously.
In what areas is the organization likely to invest the most over the next two to three years?
Not surprisingly, the investment priorities for CFOs align with their near-term risk concerns, with supply chain management, business process improvements and infrastructure modernization topping the list.
For these areas, as with other investment allocations such as cybersecurity, CFOs are focused on ensuring they reflect the organization’s broader priorities and, just as important, make fiscal sense. This is understandable as investment hurdle rates and internal return thresholds are increasing in the corporate environment. Risk-free rates are rising. Private equity, venture capital and other investors are increasingly expecting stricter hurdle rates. Thus, as the business case bar for acceptable returns rises to reflect these realities as well as economic uncertainty, capital discipline heightens.
10 actions to achieve strategic growth objectives while addressing risks
Based on the study’s findings, we can recommend that CFOs take the following actions to address near-term risk concerns as they extend their operational reach. They should do so while remaining focused on the enterprise’s objectives to grow the business and expand its markets.
- Focus on ROI, financial accountability and capital discipline for technology and infrastructure modernization, AI investments and other growth drivers
- Treat data governance and management as a mission-critical component of technology enablement and modernization
- Develop a clear quantification framework that translates cyber risks into financial- and business-impact metrics—e.g., the FAIR (Factor Analysis of Information Risk) framework
- Align AI goals with business strategy and invest in scalable AI infrastructure and technologies. Emphasize a strong technical foundation that includes resilient data pipelines, cloud platforms and integration tools to enable AI agents to operate efficiently
- Prioritize people as an indispensable driver of higher returns on AI investments. Dedicate resources to skilling, hiring and enabling teams to use and collaborate with AI solutions effectively
- Track and document exposures to tariffs, sanctions and related trade restrictions across the product and service portfolio, and across supply chains, to pinpoint and address areas prone to margin pressures
- Establish realistic timelines and investment requirements for supply chain overhauls when raw material access and other constraints are identified
- Ensure third-party risk management capabilities address cybersecurity and data privacy concerns as well as vendors’ AI use and financial stability
- Assess the high costs of legacy IT systems—from higher operational costs, process inefficiencies and forecasting degradation to talent attraction and retention challenges, AI deployment delays and adverse effects on sustaining competitive advantage—and work with the CIO to determine a cost-effective modernization plan
- Invest in regulatory compliance infrastructure improvements, given an increasingly fragmented, complex and volatile global regulatory landscape and its impacts on financial, cybersecurity, sustainability and human capital reporting requirements
In this environment, CFOs who align investment discipline with effective risk oversight—including emerging AI-related exposures—will be best positioned to drive sustainable growth and value.
