# The Role of the CFO of an Industrial Company: An Analysis of the Impact of Blockchain Technology
## 4 Analysis of the Results
Currently, the hand-operated procedure of coordinating and authorizing payments is labor- and cost-intensive. In contrast, blockchain allows payments to be instantaneously approved not only in an autonomous and immediate manner, but also in accordance with the underlying smart contract. Such efficiency gains will considerably improve an organization's cash flow, as well as the Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). Moreover, the account receivable process could also be automated by utilizing a blockchain. Here, too, a smart contract could pre-authorize payments, resulting in the organization's improved cash flow and transaction speed. Ultimately, the use of the blockchain improves a firm's liquidity ratio and working capital. In terms of the CFO's reporting function, the blockchain-enabled real-time operational insight into financial data and all occurring transactions likewise exerts considerable efficiency improvements. Firstly, the CFO obtains real-time, time-stamped, verified and tamperproof metrics. Secondly, the data are standardized and fully aggregated into a single data pool. Such transparency not only supports a company's decision making and material utilization, but also facilitates a comprehensive status report on the firm's financial condition. Thus, the arising benefits from incorporating blockchain technology into an organization's daily operations ultimately support the CFO's goal of maximizing the shareholder value. The standardization of business processes, the increase in data transparency and integrity across separate corporate departments and the enhancement in operational insight enable the CFO to automate existing auditing processes. Thus, the blockchain serves as a single source of truth on which all closed contracts and executed transactions are digitally stated and automatically verified by all the parties involved. Thereby, the auditor can generate a thorough and time-efficient transaction review without the necessity of random transaction sampling. According to experts, the resulting transparency significantly reduces error rates, as well as the CFO's liability risks. In addition, according to Expert 8, the digital representation of physical assets on the blockchain allows for a complete and immutable audit trail, which becomes particularly valuable for industrial firms trading with highly regulated goods. According to expert opinion and the literature [38], emerging technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI), enable the broad automation of an organization's accounting, reporting and auditing activities. Here, the blockchain serves as the necessary backbone by providing all relevant and consolidated data. In line with the experts, the convergence of blockchain with emerging technologies creates an increase in business process optimization (BPO), reduces human capital costs, increases the transaction speed and, in turn, results in a reduction in error rates. Thus, blockchain technology may be understood as the basis for data processing of accounting, auditing and reporting activities with a considerable and long-term impact on the net profit of a company. As confirmed by the surveyed experts, digitization, along with its continuing growth in data volumes, is shifting the CFO function to a supportive role that assists the chief executive officer (CEO) in formulating the company's corporate strategy. The exponential growth in data volumes offers companies new possibilities for analyses, but also poses the challenge of structuring and analyzing the data [39]. Although the era of Big Data is a cornerstone to analyzing valuable and company-relevant data, raw data often remain unstructured and unconsolidated within company structures. This can prevent a meaningful analysis, potentially leading to false implications. Moreover, data from external and unknown sources are oftentimes not authenticatable, which increases the risk of handling incorrect or unlawful data sets and, again, can cause misinterpretations or legal infringements.