The challenges facing today’s CFOs are immense. The faster pace of business, more stringent governance and financial reporting requirements,increased regulation and the need to deliver value within the organisation all place increased demands on the CFO and his or her team. On three occasions in the last five years Deloitte has surveyed a large cross section of CFOs in Irish based companies.

These surveys allow us to understand the issues facing CFOs and their priorities. The surveys also provide an important benchmark allowing CFOs, and indeed CEOs, to understand how their organisations rate against their peers.

Our latest survey was conducted at the end of 2004 and in early 2005. The results make very interesting reading, clearly highlighting the challenges facing CFOs, but also illustrating the actions that many CFOs are taking to address these challenges. One very clear finding of the survey, and verified by domestic and international experience, is the requirement for the CFO to balance the need to be both a strategist and a steward.

Deloitte is the only global organisation that offers a full range of consulting, audit, tax and financial advisory services. As such the needs of CFOs are very important to us. By understanding these needs we can continually update our services to provide the thought leadership and support that CFOs require.

We trust that readers will find the results of the survey both useful and informative.