With rising prices and other economic factors emerging beyond a company’s control, many CFOs remain concerned about profitable growth, inflation, and corporate action in 2023.

Around 62% of CFOs said that prioritising growth was a top three strategic priority in 2023, up from 59% last year, according to a survey by Gartner.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and restructuring (41%) were the second priority, up from 31% in 2022.

Alexander Bant, chief of research at Gartner Finance Practice, said: ‘Balancing future growth investments and CEO expectations, while still tightly managing cost and cashflow, is the tightrope CFOs must walk in the back half of 2023.

‘The top questions CFOs should be educating the CEOs and the board of directors on as the business cycle begins to turn more positive include how should we sequence funding for organic and inorganic growth bets? How best do we secure capital?’

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