Deloitte's "CFO Signals" report for Q1 2021 contains an abundance of information about companies' post-pandemic plans and the assumptions behind those projections based on a February 8 - 19 survey of 128 CFOs of North American companies across industries (weighted toward manufacturing at 30% and financial services at 29%). The vast majority of respondent companies (69% public and 31% private) had more than $1 billion annual revenue.
Notable takeaways as respects respondents' expectations include:
Travel expenses - Only 12% of CFOs overall expect travel expenses post-pandemic to be more than 80% of pre-pandemic levels, as shown here:
By industry, Telecom/Media/Ent. and Healthcare/Pharma companies expect the biggest declines in travel expenses post-pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Post-pandemic finance work - 76% of CFOs expect more of their finance work to be completed remotely post-pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels; 24% expect to have fewer internal finance staff; and 21% expect to use more outsourced finance services.
Hybrid work arrangements - Only 31% of CFOs overall expect the majority of their finance staff to work on-site four or more days post-pandemic; 45% expect on-site work to be three days/week. By industry, none of the Telecom/Media/Ent. or Healthcare/Pharma CFOs expect a 4-or-more day on-site work week post-pandemic for a majority of their finance staff, compared to 40% of Manufacturing and Tech company CFOs, who expect 4 or more days/week onsite.
See the Executive Summary; these articles: “CFOs reporting greater optimism, appetite for risk: survey” (CFO Dive), “Microsoft Prepares to Reopen Its Offices and Enter Hybrid-Work Era” (WSJ), and “How to Manage the New Hybrid Workplace” (WSJ); and additional benchmarking resources on our Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources page.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!