DECEMBER - 20218MY OPINIONIN MY OPINIONIN2020 was the year in which companies and consumers gained a stronger appreciation of how digital technologies can connect, transact and transform the way communities and colleagues live and work -- creating enormous new growth opportunities for tech companies. This year, CFOs have a major role to play in realizing these opportunities and ambitions. As a recent CFO Network article illustrates, CFOs are increasingly viewing the business through a strategy and value creation lens, with growth and digital transformation amongst their top priorities for 2021 and beyond. This resonates with the results of our recent Borderless Business research, which drills down on the challenges faced by CFOs and treasurers as corporations pursue international growth, with two studies conducted in June and December 2020.The pursuit of growth in Emerging MarketsAs Borderless Business reveals, Forty-six percent of tech companies headquartered in United States, Germany, France and UK are focused on Asia as a priority growth region (most notably Australia, Japan, China, South Korea and Hong Kong), while 42 percent now place Middle East in their top three growth regions (e.g. UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar), compared with 23 percent six months earlier.CFOs' growth challengesGiven the diversity within and between international markets, it is unsurprising that understanding regional regulation is the biggest challenge for tech CFOs and treasurers as they expand outside their home territory, an issue cited by 39 percent of respondents. This figure is higher still amongst US tech companies, of whom 41 percent placed this as their no.1 challenge. Concerns around regulation are not restricted to finance professionals but are reflected across the C-Suite. For example, IBM's recent survey of 3,000 CEOs places regulation in CEOs' top three challenges. Liquidity issues also pose potential headaches for tech CFOs, particularly resulting from lower than forecast revenues, delays in receivables collection and supply chain failure. A notable development between the studies in June and December 2020 By Jeremy Amias, Vice Chairman, Standard Chartered BankInternational Expansion in - Pandemic World
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