Survey: Customer Satisfaction the Top Concern for Finance Pros
- By AFP and Oliver Wyman
- Published: 2013-02-05
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What will be the biggest threat to companies’ earnings in the next three years? The second annual AFP/Oliver Wyman risk survey asked that of more than 500 senior financial professionals and the answer was surprising. Financial and macroeconomic risks have been top of mind since the United States entered a recession in 2007. But this year, 44 percent of respondents cited “customer satisfaction” as their greatest concern.
The companies that make up the Standard & Poor’s 500 index currently have more than $1 trillion of cash on their balance sheets. As a result, senior finance executives are not as worried about risks involving credit and liquidity. Instead, they see their main risk as more demanding and price sensitive customers. After years of cost cutting, many financial professionals believe their company will only prosper by growing their customer base.
Our analysis—summarized in a forthcoming report on how to cope with increasing earnings uncertainty to be released on February 26—suggests that qualitative risks outside of the traditional purview of treasury and finance will have a more immediate and meaningful impact on corporate performance. In order to remain competitive in a new age of global uncertainty, senior financial professionals must take a different approach to manage these rapidly evolving risks and ever more unpredictable financial results.
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Copyright © 2013 Association for Financial Professionals, Inc.
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