Finance Chiefs Struggle to Extract Value from Tech Investments as Implementation Gaps Widen

Finance Chiefs Struggle to Extract Value from Tech Investments as Implementation Gaps Widen

The finance technology stack has become a graveyard of underutilized software, and CFOs are finally admitting they don't know how to fix it.

That's the uncomfortable subtext of a new push by CFO Leadership Council, which is convening finance chiefs to address what amounts to a collective confession: buying the software was the easy part. Actually using it? That's where things fall apart.

The organization—a membership network of 2,500-plus CFOs and finance leaders—is rolling out educational programming specifically focused on "realizing finance tech's opportunities," a phrase that translates roughly to "we bought all this stuff and now what?" The initiative includes NASBA-approved continuing education events and a certification program for what they're calling "distinguished leaders in finance technology," which is either a professional credential or a participation trophy for people who can actually get their teams to use the ERP system. (Time will tell which.)

Here's the thing everyone's missing: this isn't really about the technology. It's about the fact that finance organizations are structured like it's 2015, running software designed for 2026, managed by people who were hired in 2020 to do jobs that may not exist in 2027. The gap isn't technical—it's organizational.

The Council is tackling this through its chapter system, which fosters what they describe as "rich conversations" and "long-lasting connections with peers" at in-person events. Translation: CFOs sitting around admitting to each other that they have no idea if their FP&A platform is actually saving time or just creating new kinds of work. (My money's on the latter, but I'm a cynic.)

The educational component is particularly telling. Members and paid attendees can now earn CPE credits for eligible events, which means finance chiefs can satisfy their professional requirements while learning how to extract value from technology investments. This is either brilliant or depressing—possibly both. On one hand, it acknowledges that "how to use the software we already bought" is now a formal knowledge gap requiring structured education. On the other hand, it acknowledges that "how to use the software we already bought" is now a formal knowledge gap requiring structured education.

The Council is also launching what appears to be a multi-track approach to the problem. There's a Finance & Accounting Technology Expo, naturally, because nothing says "we're serious about implementation" like another conference. There's a "Finance & Accounting Tech Briefing" for ongoing updates. And there are specialized summits for manufacturing leaders and PE-backed companies, which makes sense—those are the folks who can least afford to have expensive software sitting idle while the close process still takes nine days.

What's genuinely interesting here is the implicit admission that finance technology has become too complex for the traditional "buy it, install it, train on it" model. The fact that a major CFO organization is building an entire educational infrastructure around implementation and value realization suggests the industry has moved past the "is this technology useful?" question and landed firmly on "we know it's useful, we just can't figure out how to make it useful for us."

The certification program is the tell. When you need to certify people as "distinguished leaders in finance technology," you're acknowledging that simply being a competent CFO no longer includes knowing how to deploy and manage the finance tech stack. It's become its own specialty, which is either the professionalization of a critical skill or the bureaucratization of something that should be simpler. (Again: possibly both.)

The real question is whether structured education and peer networking can solve what is fundamentally a change management problem. You can teach a CFO how the software works. Teaching their organization to actually change how it works? That's the $10 million SaaS contract nobody wants to talk about.