Friday, February 19, 2010

Emerging role of finance manager in India

There has been a total attitudinal change among owners towards the finance manager. He is no longer referred to as my accountant. Instead of being a commodity, the finance manager is now a part of the top management. The finance manager does not cover the routine duties of finance and accounting. As a member of top management he is also responsible for formulation and implementation of policies and decision making.

The finance manager job has vastly changed. Earlier it was a support function now it is mainline. And finance itself has been a profit center.

In these competitive times, survival depends largely on an organization’s capabilities to anticipate and prepare for change rather than just react to it. The role of the financial officer, thus, becomes crucial to meet these technological, economic and political, changes.

Key challenges of Finance Manager

Investment Planning

Investment planning focuses on effective investment strategies and to analyze the risk associate with it. Finance manager is responsible for analyze the risk and help management to reduce this risk so that it does not affect the financial goal of an organization.

Financial Structure

Financial structure is the way in which company assets are financed such as short term, borrowings long term debt, and equity. Finance manager analyze the government rules and regulation, banks norms, capability of the organization and the available options in the market to finance the companies assets. That helps management to decide which option is profitable for the organization.

Treasury Operations

Treasury operations is basically the overall responsibility for administering the banking functions of organization, cash management and investment services. These all activities are directly linked with the growth of organization and profit.

Investor Communication

Finance department provides investors with an accurate account of the company's affairs. This helps investors to make informed buy or sell decisions.

Management Control

Control is one of the managerial functions like planning, organizing, directing etc.

It basically includes the three steps, to set the standards, measure actual performance and taking corrective action. Finance manager help organization to set the targets and helps organization to achieve that target by continuously monitoring the actual performance with set standards.

Clearly, the clout of the finance manager is growing along with the change in his role and reforms in the financial sector gather speed, this trend will only increase.

Financial managers aim to boost the levels of resources at their disposal. Besides, they control the functioning on money put in by external investors. Providing investors with sufficient amount of returns on their investments is one of the goals that every company tries to achieve. Efficient financial management ensures that this becomes possible.