Last week, General Motors announced its return to steady financial footing. One equity analyst proclaimed in The Wall Street Journal that the automaker is now “lean, agile, and focused.” One can easily imagine boardrooms across the land resonating with those three words.

After all, companies with spare cash or ready access to cheap money — or, in GM’s case, a government bailout — have a strong economic incentive to invest in weight loss and muscle tone. With the U.S. economic outlook still calling for tepid growth, CFOs know better than to count on increasing sales volume or unit price increases. Pushing for productivity is the only way to go.

Large manufacturers, it seems, have digested this message. Some are shuttering redundant facilities, fleets, and people. Others are moving work from unionized to non-unionized plants. Many are redrawing supply chains and recalculating the costs vs. benefits of operating in various world regions.

But it’s easier said than done. Pulling off a complex right-sizing scheme without sending the culture careening is a managerial art form. Then again, figuring out what, when, and how to cut is, for better or worse, a science only a CFO can love.

What does it take? Well, the CFO and his/her team of analytical superstars have to figure out the net economic cash flows of all major assets and activities. And they have to determine what assets to keep and what to ditch — and what it costs to shed this versus that, the cash flows involved, the political risks, the community impacts, etc.

They also have to model future expected growth in periodic reported profit—accounting for all manner of noncash impacts — say, those involving tax liabilities. They will also want to rethink plan assumptions and metrics that will be used to keep new operating plans headed in the right direction. Of course, the impact of profits produced at various intervals and at various strength levels has to be considered in light of management’s long-term incentive plans and the probable need to — ah, yes — reset the payout triggers.

Shareholders, for their part, have a right to argue that idle cash ought to be returned to them if management cannot find productive places to put it. Bond holders, meanwhile, have a right to argue against asset sales that could harm the value of their holdings.

All this puts a board on a slippery slope — that is, the board has to decide whether they truly know what is best for the company, its owners, it lenders — indeed, its legacy.

Those of us who chronicle change in the proverbial Office of the CFO suspect that in the next 18 months, as boardrooms churn with debate, some finance teams will give new meaning to the phrase “performance analytics.” The smart, well-trained, and highly focused teams of financial analysts will innovate and otherwise cut new paths to glory. They will give their CFOs and boards well-reasoned suggestions, irrefutable facts, and insights that inspire confidence.

Others, sadly, will be relying still on imperfect tools and narrow minds to chart their courses. How do I know this? Our research at APQC continues to confirm a wide gap between (a) companies that are passionate about transforming the finance function into a stream of valuable advice and (b) those that look at finance and see only a hulking cost center.

Consider the chart below (see larger version here). At a glance, you can see that the smallest wedge of the pie represents time spent by the typical finance analyst on providing valuable insights to the organization’s planners and decision-makers. More than three-fourths of this person’s week is spent … well … you get the picture. We know from interviewing the “pioneers” that they would never allow pricey analytical talent to be wasted in this way.

Over the next year or so, it will be interesting to watch this play out. My guess is that organizations that have invested in upgrading their performance management capabilities will have the jump on everybody else. ###