CFOs are belt-tightening to drive modest growth expectations

CFOs still expect to meet their strategic growth goals in 2023 despite anticipating a recession, but they are looking to cost-cutting and increased consumer demand to get there, Grant Thornton’s Q2 2022 CFO Survey found.

Growing fears of inflation and supply chain hangovers are driving a continued decline in economic optimism among CFOs, but 66% of the CFOs surveyed said they expected to “meet their growth projections” over the next year.

However, the survey noted that those growth goals were “modest” and that CFOs are “ready to cut costs and boost efficiencies” to meet them.

Grant Thornton National Audit Growth Leader Sean Denham writes in the report that at the start of last year, there was a sense that Covid-19 was winding down, and a ramp-up of growth would soon follow. “Businesses were far more confident about the economy and were loosening their belts a little,” Denham explains. “Now, with most expecting a recession, they’ve tightened their belts considerably.”

Cost control topped the list of focus areas for CFOs by a margin of nearly two to one, according to the survey. And reducing travel budgets was the highest cost reduction priority among survey respondents.

The survey was conducted in June, before inflationary pressures leveled off in July.—DA