New chief financial officers may not be spending their time where it’s most needed, according to a new McKinsey survey of CFOs.¹ Finance chiefs, globally and across industries, report spending most of the first hundred days on budgeting, management reporting, and financial reporting. By contrast, they think that the most crucial activities during that time are understanding the drivers of the business, providing input into corporate strategy, and building the finance team.

Why are there such differences between what they do and what they regard as important? A possible answer was suggested by one CFO’s response to a question about what, in hindsight, respondents would have done more or less of. This CFO pointed out, “There is no simple answer to this. One cannot put the clock back. Every day the situation changes, and the responses and actions will have to be tuned to the situation. CFO[s] must be able to assess the business needs and act.”