Cover Stories: The Evolution of Finance

In the 99 issues leading up to this month's Business Finance, we've reported on just about everything that has impacted the finance function: the good, the bad and the in-between.

Looking back over our years of publication, we've identified what we believe to be the three major forces that have shaped the evolution of finance and finance executives' job -- forces we believe will continue to be the predominant drivers of change in the years ahead.

Clearly, technology has revolutionized finance and accounting over the past decade, and there's no end to that transformation in sight. Since the mid-'90s, we've seen the rapid development of enterprise resource planning systems; the emergence of sophisticated data-mining software that enables users to perform complex tasks such as scenario analysis; and the advent of business performance management software, which has helped executives adopt more of a metrics-oriented approach to managing their organization. Those advances have catapulted CFOs into the role of strategist.

Technology is the overriding theme of the following special section because its advances have helped CFOs meet the challenges posed by the other two factors we've singled out as critical to the evolution of finance: the boom-and-bust economy and the new, harsher regulatory environment that sprang from the excesses of the go-go years. New technologies have enabled finance executives to subdue the effects of economic volatility and satisfy the stringent requirements of new regulations and legislation.

In the following pages, we take a look back to provide a helpful context for the present -- and, we hope, the future.

- the editors

Cover Section

The Technology Transformation. The Internet, data networks, ERP and business performance management tools have enabled CFOs to exit transaction mode and become analysts and strategists. by Tad Leahy

Finance in a Mercurial World. Economic and market volatility has reshaped the finance function and will define its tasks in the years ahead. by Fay Hansen

In the Regulatory Environment, Everything Old Is New Again. Sarbanes-Oxley has turned CFOs' clock back by reestablishing a focus on controls. But in today's complex corporate structures, the challenges -- and the penalties for not meeting them -- are more severe. by Eric Krell