FUTURE ROLE OF THE FINANCE DIRECTOR

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/eb024802
Published date01 February 1994
Pages150-154
Date01 February 1994
AuthorROGER TRAPP
Subject MatterAccounting & finance
FUTURE ROLE OF THE FINANCE DIRECTOR
Received: 27th January, 1994
ROGER
TRAPP
ROGER
TRAPP
WRITES ABOUT ACCOUNTANCY AND
MANAGEMENT ISSUES FOR THE INDEPENDENT
AND INDEPENDENT
ON
SUNDAY
NEWSPAPERS.
HE
IS THE EDITOR OF 'MY BIGGEST MISTAKE', A
COLLECTION OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE
INDEPENDENT
ON
SUNDAY COLUMN OF THE
SAME NAME THAT WAS PUBLISHED IN
NOVEMBER 1992.
ABSTRACT
The paper argues that the role of the
finance
director
hitherto
confined
pri-
marily to ensuring that
controls
are
com-
plied with and that
'the
numbers'
add up
is going through a period of
unprece-
dented
change.
As the job
description
is
broadened
to
include such matters
as
fash-
ioning
corporate
strategy and handling
investor relations the
training provided
by
the
accountancy
route is called into
ques-
tion.
Since the business world itself is
undergoing such fundamental
change it seems only reasonable that
the roles of executives in companies
should alter too. However, few jobs
are changing in the way that the
finance director's is.
This is partly the result of the
widespread adoption of such con-
cepts as team building, flatter hier-
archies and increased focus on the
customer and the profound effect
they are having throughout com-
panies. But it is also connected with
the trend for all board members to
have a commercial sense of where
the business is going rather than for
some of them merely to represent
functions, such as finance and mar-
keting, and leave the strategy to the
chief executive or managing direc-
tor.
Indeed, a recently published
report1 co-written by Sir Geoffrey
Owen, former editor of the Financial
Times,
suggests that there has been a
trend away from an almost total pre-
occupation with number-crunching
and controls towards being 'part of a
management team, concerned to
add value and to stimulate change'.
The working title for the study
carried out by the Board for Char-
tered Accountants in Business by the
Interdisciplinary Institute of
Management at the London School
150

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