High Potential for Indian Economy, but too early for Exuberance

CII Karnataka Annual CFO Conference strikes a cautious note of optimism

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Karnataka today organized the Annual CFO Conference 2009 with the theme ‘Road to Recovery – The CFO’s Role’. The conference was aimed at illustrating the key take-away and learning from the recent economic downturn, focusing on the strategies that have worked for CFOs in challenging times in transforming finance for greater value creation, influencing corporate strategy and impacting organisational performance, all of which has redefined the conventional role of the CFO in the organisation.

Delivering the keynote address on the theme, Mr Venkatesh Valluri President – India Region, Ingersoll Rand Group speaking from a business leaders perspective on the changing role of the CFO, advised them to seize the opportunity presenting itself as economies recover to shameless leapfrog ahead by leveraging the power of technology, cooperation, collaboration, global opportunities, and rural market led innovations. However he also cautioned the industry against exuberance leading to over-confidence during recovery. “

“The CFO should be able to combine entrepreneurial ability along with number-crunching ability,” said S. Viswanathan, Past Chairman – CII Karnataka & MD, John Fowler (India) Pvt Ltd. He also emphasised on effective communication being part of a CFO’s new skill set.

The day-long conference was addressed by CFOs from amongst leading Indian and MNC companies representing a cross section of sectors such as FMCG, Automotive, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Capital Goods, Power, IT and Consulting services on various areas related to the larger role that the CFO has to assume going forward which included priorities for a CFO during Economic Uncertainties, M&A and Restructuring Strategies, Building a High Performance Finance Function, Optimization of Capital Requirement to Risk Management Frameworks.

Some of the key messages for CFOs coming through during the day included becoming more entrepreneurial, less risk averse; seizing business transformational opportunities through inorganic growth; aligning more closely with business; cash is king; working capital management; developing new business models; effective, responsive and accountable corporate governance measures.