International Findings 2025

How the Finance function is changing across Europe.

As an international academic consortium, we are tracking how finance is evolving over time, making executives ready for the future direction of their own finance organization. We cover more than 10 countries worldwide with feedbacks from >500 CFOs and financial executives.

Our academic partners have extensive knowledge in management accounting & control and related areas (accounting, auditing, finance, treasury), access to a large network of executives & firms and a clear perspective on recent trends & future developments.

Partner with us
Latest Research

2025 — Ambidexterity of Finance

Balancing exploitation — reporting, budgeting, compliance — with exploration — innovation, digital transformation, new services.

Key findings

  • Finance stays anchored in the core. Reporting (74%), budgeting (76%) and cost management (63%) dominate; new service development (5%) and digital transformation (9%) remain secondary.
  • Exploitation beats exploration. Only 20–30% of finance teams actively pursue forward-looking work like redesigning planning processes or piloting AI tools.
  • Culture and context matter. Flexible, collaborative cultures and operational slack correlate with more exploratory behaviour; financial strain and risk-averse leadership suppress it.
  • The road ahead. The challenge is enabling finance to maintain the present while preparing for the future — an ambidextrous portfolio.
See methodology
Annual Themes

Five years of international research.

Each year the consortium fields one survey across all partner countries, with a focused theme on how the Finance function is evolving.

2022
Self-Service BI
167 respondents
Adoption of self-service BI and its implications for the controller's role.
2023
ESG
433 respondents
Integration of ESG into planning, reporting and performance management.
2024
Artificial Intelligence
542 respondents
Adoption of AI and advanced analytics across the finance function.
2025
Ambidexterity of Finance
588 respondents
Balancing the core (reporting, budgeting) with exploration (innovation, digital).
2026
AI Use in Finance
In the field
A deeper look at how AI is used in day-to-day finance work. Register to participate.
Countries we cover

Eleven countries. One shared questionnaire.

The same survey, translated and fielded by a local partner in each country, lets us benchmark finance functions across Europe.

🇩🇪
Germany
University of St.Gallen
🇮🇹
Italy
SDA Bocconi
🇳🇱
Netherlands
University of Utrecht · VU Amsterdam
🇵🇹
Portugal
ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa
🇦🇹
Austria
WU Vienna · Danube Business School Krems
🇬🇷
Greece
Athens Univ. of Economics & Business
🇨🇭
Switzerland
University of St.Gallen
🇸🇪
Sweden
Stockholm School of Economics
🇪🇸
Spain
Esade Business School
🇫🇮
Finland
Aalto University
🇮🇪
Ireland
University of Galway · University College Cork
Get Involved

Four ways to engage with FDF.

We believe the best research comes from a tight loop between academia and practice. Bring your question, your data, or your sponsorship.

Sponsor FDF

Support the annual international symposium, national launch events, and executive roundtables. Three tiers, clear benefits.

Sponsorship tiers →

Propose research

Bring us your question. We co-design a survey module or field study with one of our partner universities.

Submit a question →

Join the panel

Receive the annual survey, contribute your view, and get the international report before anyone else.

Join →

Engage a speaker

Get in contact with our team to book an expert from academia or related colleagues with practice background.

Contact us →