In the wake of the economic downturn, 80 percent of senior finance executives said their scope of responsibilities has expanded, with finance also now overseeing programs in other departments across the enterprise, according to findings of a new Accenture survey.

The departments where senior finance executives most frequently said they also now manage projects include: information technology (43 percent), strategy and business development (41 percent), and human resources (39 percent). They also mentioned having program responsibilities in risk and customer service (37 percent each), procurement (35 percent), marketing and sales (33 percent), research and development (30 percent), and supply chain management (25 percent).

In addition to the expanded scope of responsibilities, 79 percent of the more than 1,000 senior finance executives surveyed across Asia, Europe and North and South America, said they need more flexibility in their operations to more readily respond to ongoing market changes, and 58 percent of them said this increased flexibility would be needed across their operations for the next six to 18 months.

However, 22 percent of the executives said they would require greater flexibility in their finance operations for a longer period of time -- 18 months or more. Fewer than one out of four (22 percent) said greater flexibility would be necessary for less than six months.

“The economic crisis left the corporate finance function stretched by additional responsibilities and rapidly changing market dynamics that require nimble operations to quickly adapt to new business realities,” said Paul Boulanger, managing director of the Accenture Finance & Performance Management service line. “With corporations operating in a more volatile business environment, finance must be integrated across the enterprise and have a strong grasp of overall business objectives so they can provide guidance and early warning to the C-suite when circumstances dictate a change of course.”

Consequently, more than three out of four respondents (78 percent) said flexibility is needed in their planning and forecasting, rather than the traditional annual process. More than half of them also said they needed greater flexibility in their cost management (61 percent), transaction processing (60 percent), cash management (58 percent), performance reporting (58 percent), capital expenditure management (56 percent) and asset management (54 percent).

To enable greater market responsiveness, 84 percent of the executives said they need to update their processes, data or content (including analytics), IT systems and/or workforce centralization. Breaking that down, 63 percent of the executives said they had modified or needed to modify their financial planning and forecasting processes, and 48 percent said they had modified or needed to modify their corresponding IT systems. More than half of the executives (53 percent) also said they have expanded or are expanding their content or data (including analytics) in planning and forecasting.