By Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada
Winter is turning to spring, and businesses are looking for new growth opportunities amidst shifting geopolitical dynamics, changing strategic priorities and technological advancements. While the business environment may be challenging, it presents new opportunities, too. The new SAP Concur CFO Insights Report 2025* suggests that against this backdrop, increased collaboration between HR, IT, and finance departments can yield a particularly good crop and maximise growth opportunities for the business.
However, the real picture on the ground is quite different, with organisational silos spreading like a weed hindering growth momentum and costing businesses money. New data from the report shows how differently HR, IT and finance leaders see even the root cause of this issue: finance (53%) while for the majority of HR leaders (75%) insufficient data sharing and transparency is the main culprit behind lacking integration across teams.
Cross-departmental disagreements continue when it comes to finding a cure to siloed work, too. More than half of finance leaders (50%) and IT (67%) prioritise implementing flexible budgets for collaborative projects. HR leaders number one priority however is to create cross-functional working groups (58%).
Talent retention and acquisition as growth drivers
Other key findings from the SAP Concur CFO Insights report reveal how talent retention and acquisition are undervalued as growth drivers:
- While finance leaders recognise the significance of finance talent retention and acquisition, only 23% see them as ‘essential’ factors to growth. They feel it’s important, but other challenges, such as manual processes, cost management, growing complexity of financial forecasting and budgeting, and adoption of technology/ digital transformation, require more attention.
- HR leaders see collaboration with finance as an essential element of a successful recruitment and retention strategy – for instance, 75% want their finance partner to provide them with financial insights to support workforce planning.
- Opportunities for deeper collaboration between HR and finance don’t stop there: almost half of HR leaders (50%) identified the need for finance to asset in developing metrics to better measure the impact of HR initiatives and 50% want increased budget allocations.
IT leaders are confident in cybersecurity, but human factor may be a weak point
Statista’s Market insights suggests the global cost of cybercrime is expected to surge in the next four years, rising from $9.22 trillion in 2024 to $13.82 trillion by 2028. This is quite a steep surge, largely attributed to phishing and social engineering attacks, insufficient endpoint security, and inadequate employee training. Against this backdrop, of IT leaders are surprisingly confident and feel their organisation is prepared to respond to an increased threat of cyber-attacks.
Human factors are the security weak points in the business though, warranting increased investment into education and training on cyber hygiene:
- Phishing and social engineering attacks are the top risk perceived by 67%.
- Inadequate cybersecurity training (33%), remote work and unsecured personal devices (33%) and weak or reused employee passwords add to the challenge (33%).
However, in the grand scheme of things, cybersecurity isn’t a key priority for finance leaders, and they don’t feel the urgency of collaborating with IT teams to make the business more secure against cybercrime. This is emphasised by the data, which shows only 17% of finance leaders planning to align with IT teams on cybersecurity.
The New SAP Concur CFO Insights report shows areas for improvement between key business functions such as HR, IT and finance. For organisations that can bring the silos down, increased collaboration creates a fertile soil for fostering growth this year.
*SAP Concur surveyed 350 chief financial officers and senior finance leaders, 115 HR leaders and 115 IT leaders for its latest CFO Insights report.
The research, conducted between December 2024 and January 2025, covered Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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This entry was posted on May 2, 2025 at 8:30 am and is filed under Commentary with tags SAP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Guest Post: New SAP Concur research: Conflicting departmental priorities block collaboration between finance, IT and HR leaders
By Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada
Winter is turning to spring, and businesses are looking for new growth opportunities amidst shifting geopolitical dynamics, changing strategic priorities and technological advancements. While the business environment may be challenging, it presents new opportunities, too. The new SAP Concur CFO Insights Report 2025* suggests that against this backdrop, increased collaboration between HR, IT, and finance departments can yield a particularly good crop and maximise growth opportunities for the business.
However, the real picture on the ground is quite different, with organisational silos spreading like a weed hindering growth momentum and costing businesses money. New data from the report shows how differently HR, IT and finance leaders see even the root cause of this issue: finance (53%) while for the majority of HR leaders (75%) insufficient data sharing and transparency is the main culprit behind lacking integration across teams.
Cross-departmental disagreements continue when it comes to finding a cure to siloed work, too. More than half of finance leaders (50%) and IT (67%) prioritise implementing flexible budgets for collaborative projects. HR leaders number one priority however is to create cross-functional working groups (58%).
Talent retention and acquisition as growth drivers
Other key findings from the SAP Concur CFO Insights report reveal how talent retention and acquisition are undervalued as growth drivers:
IT leaders are confident in cybersecurity, but human factor may be a weak point
Statista’s Market insights suggests the global cost of cybercrime is expected to surge in the next four years, rising from $9.22 trillion in 2024 to $13.82 trillion by 2028. This is quite a steep surge, largely attributed to phishing and social engineering attacks, insufficient endpoint security, and inadequate employee training. Against this backdrop, of IT leaders are surprisingly confident and feel their organisation is prepared to respond to an increased threat of cyber-attacks.
Human factors are the security weak points in the business though, warranting increased investment into education and training on cyber hygiene:
However, in the grand scheme of things, cybersecurity isn’t a key priority for finance leaders, and they don’t feel the urgency of collaborating with IT teams to make the business more secure against cybercrime. This is emphasised by the data, which shows only 17% of finance leaders planning to align with IT teams on cybersecurity.
The New SAP Concur CFO Insights report shows areas for improvement between key business functions such as HR, IT and finance. For organisations that can bring the silos down, increased collaboration creates a fertile soil for fostering growth this year.
*SAP Concur surveyed 350 chief financial officers and senior finance leaders, 115 HR leaders and 115 IT leaders for its latest CFO Insights report.
The research, conducted between December 2024 and January 2025, covered Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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This entry was posted on May 2, 2025 at 8:30 am and is filed under Commentary with tags SAP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.