Chief financial officers will be critical to supporting radical change across UK plc, after a survey found that one in five UK CEOs (21%) said delivering “a fundamental reinvention of their business model” had become the dominant priority.

In its 27th UK CEO Survey, PwC found that CEOs are bent on radical change for fear their organisations won’t be economically viable within 10 years on their current path – a statistic that has hardly changed from last year (22%). 

Faced with persistent challenges and growth concerns, CEOs are turning to investments in necessary skills and technology, and the rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to ensure companies can continue to grow in the ever-more digital world, the PwC study finds – with CFOs critical to delivering CEOs’ goals. 

Charles Platts, CFO of graphene electronic devices producer Paragraf, says: “In times of growth and a challenging economic environment, agility and forecasting are key. The ability to anticipate what is coming and then being able to flex plans accordingly. This requires finance to engage across the entire business to understand the impacts that decisions will have.”

Investment for change

More than half of UK CEOs (53%) are taking personal responsibility for driving change and are also making significant investments to make change happen, including appointing dedicated transformation leaders (21%) and teams (35%), reallocating capital to transformation projects (38%) and raising additional funding for them (24%).

“CEO sponsorship sends a clear message to the business about the importance of a more all-encompassing business model reinvention, as does the creation of dedicated teams and leadership to deliver a level of change that is elevated above standalone functional transformations,” says Marco Amitrano, Managing Partner and Head of Clients and Markets at PwC UK.

To support the change projects afoot finance leaders must break down siloed ways of working, adds Pam McIntyre, Senior Vice President, Corporate Controller at OneStream Software.

“The finance function has become an increasingly critical heartbeat for business operations. Finance leaders must be able to steer the business amid this macroeconomic uncertainty by actively forecasting, planning and analysing risks and opportunities,” McIntyre says.

Transformative IT projects

At the same time, investments in technology infrastructure and data strategies are key to supporting change programmes, PwC says. A substantial 87% of CEOs surveyed said they have recently completed or are currently running or planning at least one transformative IT project. Meanwhile, more than three-quarters (76%) said they will invest in cloud infrastructure and data and AI this year.

McIntyre says: “These technologies enable finance leaders to process vast datasets faster, more accurately and efficiently. This unlocks critical insights and efficiencies and results in significant productivity and financial improvements.”

Rachael Hampton, Cloud Transformation Leader for Private Sector Clients at PwC UK, says that cloud provides “the foundational platform to reliably collect data from sources right across an organisation, its supply chain and wider logistics networks”. Collating and analysing that data would inform “smarter and more consistent decision-making”, as well as powering specific benefits such as more robust reporting in support of net zero transformation.

Pathway to net zero 

Paragraf CFO Platts adds: “Not only is net zero driving top-line commercial opportunities, but also many operational decisions to support a move towards net zero now provide much shorter-term benefits for the bottom line than in previous years. Showing a clear pathway towards net zero is also key for investment.” 

PwC research highlights that getting the numbers right is crucial to effective net zero transformation and robust sustainability reporting. “Without it, organisations are blind to their progress,” according to Lynne Baber, PwC UK’s Sustainability Practice Leader.

The shortage of technology skills featured as a perennial priority for CEOs. The majority of UK CEOs (78%) reported some skills shortage within their organisation, and 68% said a lack of tech capabilities was inhibiting their ability to transform.

Although the finance profession has found it harder to recruit in recent years, AI-driven finance is expected to increase productivity and efficiency, and in turn create more varied roles in finance. “A lack of the right talent is a continuing issue across the business, not just in finance. The demise of UK manufacturing has made recruiting into manufacturing finance roles a challenge for a number of years,” Platts concludes.