CFOs are not solely numbers-crazed, according to a survey by American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). The survey among 1,300 CFOs and other finance executives in 61 countries found that corporate reputation topped the list of areas they are seeing their organizations place greater focus on. In fact, 76% put corporate reputation first. The reasons for this laser like focus on reputation, according to these financial experts, are greater demands for transparency by the marketplace, watching other companies experience reputational failure and the rise of social media. A fairly large 65% of these financially-minded executives also report that the financial implications of reputational risk are seriously considered by their organizations. Far fewer (20%) say that they use social media feedback enough to anticipate and monitor reputational risk. Since there are so many daily examples of companies losing reputational equity, it seems that CFOs are not monitoring enough so that they can be prepared and nimble should it happen to them.
To be a CFO today, an understanding of how reputation impacts the bottom line is an imperative. The loss of reputation can surely impact financial performance, customer loyalty and recruiting. The results from this study make it very clear that CFOs are becoming increasinly cognizant of the perils of reputation loss on their company’s ability to compete and grow. They just need to speed up their social media oversight.