Challenges Faced by Financial Managers in a Changing Economic Environment

Executive Summary
The global economic environment has changed significantly in just the last 8 years. Central banks have become more assertive in the market places, inflation measured by CPI has risen, the dollar index has dropped, political rhetoric is highly inflammatory with a focus on tariffs, trade wars, currency wars, protectionism, nationalism, and interventionism all being heard more and more in recent months and years. For a finance manager all of these variables must be considered when focusing on how to plan for risk, how to guide the firm’s financial decisions, and how to protect cash flow. This paper identifies some of the main challenges that a financial manager will face in the light of changing economic conditions—namely, how rising interest rates, exchange rates and inflation rates will impact cash flow, and how the flow of information must be managed in order to balance strategic aims with economic uncertainties and economic realities. This paper recommends that financial managers focus specifically on cultivating a clear picture of how the macroeconomic picture is evolving, where markets are being led and why, and how the next ten years is likely to turn out. With this picture in mind, the financial manager will be better positioned to guide his various departments in making the right choices.
The macroeconomic environment has changed substantially since 2008 as a result of central banks partaking of loose monetary policy known as quantitative easing (QE), in which trillions of dollars, yen, Euros, renminbi and pounds were printed to prop up markets—and the result has been creeping inflation (as Friedman points out, a sharp increase in the quantity of money is always what leads to inflation) coupled with a slowing economy and high unemployment—aka stagflation (Corsi & Sornette, 2014; Heller, 2017). While 2017 saw nothing but green for equities, volatility has returned with a vengeance in 2018. Now that the Fed is tightening and raising the federal funds rate, all eyes are on bond yields as the price of risk assets lingers on the brink of a potential precipice. Moreover, with the threat of trade wars looming, nationalism and protectionism rising financial managers find themselves looking at a macroeconomic situation that resembles more and more a powder keg. Though the central banks may well choose to intervene once more to save markets, it also may well be too late for more loose monetary policy to do any good as the market sets about reasserting itself in the face of a global experiment in playing command and control economy comes to an end. This paper will critically asses the challenges faced by financial managers due to changes in the macroeconomic environment and how these impact businesses operations.
Consequences related to changes in strategies and priorities in the way departments adjust are numerous and invariably complex. As Ilie (2015) states: “the more complex the economic system, the more complex the businesses, the more complex the interaction between economic players in a global economy, and the more uncertainties one has to face in these turbulent times, the more complex the role of managers become, including the role of financial managers” (p. 726). Indeed, uncertainty and rising risk places new pressures on finance managers—and in order to cope, the finance manager must have access to technical capabilities that allow for streamlined processes to be put in place. Challenges that the finance manager will face include: regulation changes; globalization factors (such as trade); technological issues (such as how data is used, how algorithmic trading is conducted, and how markets move based on these various inputs); risk; stakeholder management, strategic positioning; reporting; and the availability of highly-talented employees.
One of the main challenges that managers will face includes simply handling the flow of information: “being flooded with information, the finance departments face an imperative change in order to narrow the information gap, the gap between the information they can access and analyze and the one they need in order to make decisions” (Ilie, 2015, p. 728). Using information appropriately, whether it is in a risk management department, on the trading floors, or in the investment department is critical to the financial manager’s success. Macroeconomic shocks, for example, can impact cash flows and there should be some hedges in place in anticipation of these shocks—but to get to that point a solid understanding of the global economy and the headwinds and tailwinds that evident in the markets has to be obtained. From this point of view, a financial manager should reflect his firm’s overall orientation to strategic positioning—or, as Oxelheim, Wihlborg and Thorsheim (2011) put it, the financial manger and his firm “must approach the macroeconomic exposures through a comprehensive framework…recognizing the firm wide effects of macroeconomic variables as well as the interdependence among them” (p. 193). Doing so would help to position the firm much better in terms of mitigating risk factors, such as currency devaluations, inflation, interest rates rising, stagflation, credit tightening and so on.
The main recommendation that can come from this is that, as Oxelheim et al. (2011) note, “changes in market price variables such as exchange rates, interest rates and inflation rates reflect changes in the macroeconomic environment and they are observable with little lag” (p. 197)—and for that reason, a financial manager must pinpoint the effects of these variables on cash flow and predict how the firm will be impacted one way or another as macroeconomic indicators present themselves. For example, transaction exposure can be hedged in order to maintain cash flow/earnings, which a corporation will want to preserve based on its own assessment of future exchange rate moves. Selective or strategic hedges can be performed depending on this assessment. A tactical hedge would include reducing transaction exposure due to short-term receivables/payables. A strategic hedge would include reducing exposure due to long-term accounts. Though these strategies may be helpful to a financial manager and the departments being overseen, assessing the factors that affect a firm’s value with respect to exchange rate movements is the best way to protect a corporation against losses incurred by FX moves. Regardless, the macroeconomic picture that the financial manager cultivates for the firm will be the biggest input for directing risk management in an uncertain economic period. Thus, cultivating a clear and accurate macroeconomic picture is the biggest challenge facing the financial manager and also the most important thing that he must do. In other words, financial managers focus specifically on cultivating a clear picture of how the macroeconomic picture is evolving, where markets are being led and why, and how the next ten years is likely to turn out. With this picture in mind, the financial manager will be better positioned to guide his various departments in making the right choices.
In conclusion, the challenges faced by a financial manager in a changing economic environment are situated in the numerous and complex variables that will impact the firm’s cash flow—from headwinds to tailwinds, to rising rates and tightening credit, to economic slowdown and ending business cycles, to currency wars and trade wars. Geopolitical factors, economic factors, and even social factors all must serve as valid inputs for the financial manager as risks are identified and mitigated in an economic picture that is anything but ordinary. If departments do not adjust to the changing headwinds and tailwinds of a quickly and dramatically altering macro-economy, they will sure bear the brunt of tremendous pressures that could result in total capitulation and enormous losses.

References
Corsi, F. & Sornette, D., (2014). Follow the money: The monetary roots of bubbles and
crashes. International Review of Financial Analysis, 32, 47-59.
Heller, R. (2017). Monetary mischief and the debt trap. Cato Journal, 37(2), 247-261
Ilie, L. (2015). Challenges for financial managers in a changing economic
environment. Procedia Economics and Finance, 27, 726-730.
Oxelheim, L., Wihlborg, C., & Thorsheim, M. (2011). The CFO’s Information Challenge
in Managing Macroeconomic Risk. In The Strategic CFO (pp. 189-208). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.