What is the role of financial managers and executives in this crisis?
How can financial managers deal with the crisis so that they are seen as more than technical players? How can they show that they can help create new business models as distinct from accounting for existing ones? Financial managers must have a high degree of financial literacy and learning to pursue their discipline. However this is not the same as financial or business acumen. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that high financial literacy can sometimes get in the way of business acumen, as indeed we have seen in the current US credit crisis. The answer to the current crisis will not come from having financial literacy, although financial literacy may be necessary to understand it. The creation of new business models will come from managers who have high business acumen and put in place the organizational environments and events to leverage that business acumen to create new business models. Strategies for Developing New Business Models Thus the role of financial managers in he
