A survey of over 150 treasury and finance professionals at the Association of Financial Professionals' Annual conference found that: 1) Nearly 43% felt that new financial regulations introduced in 2014 were the biggest external hurdle in achieving their business goals for the year. 2) Global competition was the second largest external challenge, though many professionals have yet to fully adopt a global mindset. 3) Big data was cited as the third largest external challenge, with difficulties aggregating and reporting risk-related data from various systems. Internally, 65% said inefficiencies prevented them from reaching goals, while inexperienced staff and lack of leadership were also challenges. Building bench strength through training and

1. 58 I AFP Exchange January/February 2015 Welcome Reception at the National Museum of American History
Leadership and Managment
APLENTY
Obstacles
What prevented finance professionals
from hitting their business goals in 2014?
Marina Theodotou
KEY INSIGHTS:
• Regulatory burdens are a bigger challenge than your competitors.
• Despite a globalizing marketplace, many professionals have yet to adopt a global mindset.
• Big data looms large—just aggregating the information is an enormous challenge.
During the Association of Financial Professionals’ Annual
last November, the American Management Association
conducted a survey of over 150 treasury and finance
professionals. The goal of the survey was to find out the challenges
and opportunities treasury and finance professionals face in
their career path in the next 12 months, and how they stay
current in their current positions.
Copyright ©2015 by the Association for Financial Professionals. All rights reserved in all countries.

2. www.AFPonline.org AFP Exchange I 59
The AMA survey shows that nearly 43 percent of the
treasury and finance professionals interviewed feel that the
biggest external hurdle in achieving their business goals this
year was the introduction of new regulations. Indeed, 2014
saw several reforms relating to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street
Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Volcker Rule,
the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency, FDIC liquidity rules for larger banks, Federal
Reserve and Basel III capital requirements and OCC Risk
Governance Guidelines, to name several.
These regulatory pressures will only get tougher as treasury
and finance professionals are now charged more than ever to
embed, strengthen and report on their governance structures to
senior management, their board of directors and regulators. In
fact, a 2014 KPMG study noted that these regulatory pressures
emphasize the imperative for treasury and finance professionals’
“personal responsibility and improved governance.”
Global competition was the second biggest external hurdle
for treasury and finance professionals at AFP’s conference.
Despite the growing imperative for organizations to adopt a
global mindset, it seems they have made little progress toward
that goal during the past year. An AMA study from May
2014 showed that while proportion of firms addressing global
leadership grew from 31 percent in 2010 to 44 percent in
2014, a majority of organizations have yet to make an effort
to develop a global mindset.
The third external hurdle preventing treasury and finance
professionals from reaching their business goals in 2014 was big
data.The respondents’ concern is underscored in the KPMG
report, which noted that the biggest risk with big data is actually
in aggregation and reporting of risk-related data. Key issues with
big data pertain to efficiency, flexibility, quality and governance.
Treasury and finance professionals need to invest resources both
on the aggregation, scrubbing and reconciliation of data from
the various systems as well as the analysis and reporting required
for sound strategy implementation.
Internal challenges
Treasury and finance professionals face internal challenges as
well. Of the practitioners who were surveyed at the 2014 AFP
Annual Conference, 65 percent said that internal inefficiencies
prevented them from reaching their business goals, followed by
inexperienced staff, and then lack of leadership.
Figure 2: Biggest Internal Challenge
What is the biggest internal challenge to
achieving your business goals this year?
Figure 1: Biggest External Challenge
What is the biggest external challenge to
achieving your business goals this year?
Source: AMA Survey Nov. 2014
Big Data
15.1%
Cyberthreats
11.8%
Global
competition
30.3%
New
regulations
42.8%
Internal
inefficiencies
65.1%
Inexperienced
staff
20.4%
Lack of leadership
Unattainable
goals
Every treasury and finance professional must deliver
more with less resources and less time, and smaller budgets,
internal inefficiencies, both visible and invisible, hurt these
efforts. For the second internal hurdle—inexperienced staff—
the best solution is to shorten those steep learning curves
with training, both on the job and in the classroom, whether
virtual or face to face.
Increasing regulatory burdens, global competition and
big data challenges will only increase in 2015 and beyond.
Building a strong internal bench of staff, mitigating risk, and
curtailing internal inefficiencies will enable you to can tackle
the external issues when they crop up with more agility,
stronger governance and tighter cost effectiveness.
Marina Theodotou is Portfolio Manager—Finance for the
American Management Association.
Source: AMA Survey Nov. 2014
8.6%
5.9%
Copyright ©2015 by the Association for Financial Professionals. All rights reserved in all countries.