CFOs: A strategic enabler for business in the dynamic tax environment

Some opportunities and challenges discussed during the session included:

• Attracting and retaining the right talent and providing them with a thriving/ growth-oriented environment
• Releasing tax team bandwidth from manual/ low value-added tasks to ensure greater focus on strategic activities
• Building capabilities across talent to augment process and technology skills along with technical skills that enhance the ability to learn and re-learn
• Collaborating with other business functions, adding value to business, and supporting an organization’s growth through innovation
• Harnessing the power of technology in businesses and tax function operations, at the same time de-risking the organization from cyber-security threats
• In light of trends around expanding compliance requirements and the increase in tax risk profile, pro-actively create readiness to respond to changes and become future ready
• Effectively manage tax function operating costs and ensure predictability/ visibility 
• Periodic review of the operating model to identify areas for transformation and automation to be able to deliver today’s requirement and to manage the growing scale of operations

The Industry at large has adopted various approaches to bring about this shift. Some companies have adopted an activity of tax transformation across processes or areas that need an overhaul, some have adopted digitization to automate specified tax processes aimed at improved accuracy, visibility, and control and some have put in place outsourcing or co-sourcing models where they partner with external professionals to operate tax functions.

Talking about various routes one could take in their journey to transformation, the panelists discussed how CFOs need to be forward-looking and plan ahead to become a strategic enabler for business without losing sight of the key focus area — ensuring timely, accurate and risk-managed compliances.