CFO - Wave of Change™ May 2025

As CFOs navigate their financial strategy for 2025, a powerful pattern has emerged: revenue growth and profitability continue to dominate the finance agenda. This report reveals that while digital transformation and automation are in motion, a fragmented technology landscape and lack of cross-functional alignment are hindering progress. Australian finance leaders are caught between ambition and execution - grappling with the need to drive value creation while constrained by legacy systems, siloed data, and talent gaps in digital fluency. The findings highlight both the current priorities and the critical opportunities for finance teams to mature their strategic role by connecting insight, infrastructure, and innovation.

Key Findings

• Profit and Growth Still Rule: 81% of CFOs rank revenue growth and profitability as their top strategic priority for the year ahead - reinforcing traditional metrics as the bedrock of finance leadership. ‍
• Data Abundance, Strategic Scarcity: Despite access to digital tools, CFOs struggle to translate fragmented data into strategic insight, with over 40% citing “balancing growth with profitability” as a top team challenge. ‍
• AI Adoption Rises - But Silos Persist: Automated reporting and AI-driven forecasting are gaining traction, yet a lack of integration across financial systems limits full realisation of value. ‍
• Innovation Bottlenecked by Infrastructure: 45% of CFOs identify outdated or inadequate technology infrastructure as their biggest barrier to financial management success. ‍
• Cautious, Not Cutting-Edge: A combined 88% of ANZ finance leaders describe their organisations as either conservative or selective adopters of new technology, reflecting hesitation to fully embrace transformative change. ‍
• Shift Toward Connected Finance: There is growing momentum to unify finance with risk, IT, legal, and cloud operations - but siloed functions, underfunded legal tech, and compliance-heavy risk postures still hinder holistic, data-driven decision-making.