2023 Controller/CFO Sentiment Study

What will Controllers and CFOs do differently in 2023? This inaugural study seeks to understand how current business and economic environments are impacting corporate financial planning, strategy, priorities, and outlooks.

The 2023 indexes represent a “bullish” outlook for individual company financial performance, along with a “cautious” plan for spending. The new indexes will serve as benchmarks for future data, while identifying trends in financial performance and organizational spending.

The survey results and indexes might seem more optimistic than other, recent studies. We contend that our respondent demographics are “closer” to the North American statistics for company sizes including a majority of companies in the Small-Medium Business (SMB) category.

Reports from the Wall Street Journal support our results, identifying pessimistic projections by Large company CEOs vs. optimistic projections by Mid-Size company CEOs (WSJ 12/21/22). Another study identified a surge in small company hiring (WSJ 1/25/23), yet large companies reported massive layoffs.

All data for this report comes from an anonymous and confidential survey conducted between October and December 2022, with responses from nearly 300 participants, most of whom serve as Controllers or CFOs in a variety of industries.

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