New and emerging technologies are the catalysts of unprecedented change in today’s business climate, putting greater responsibility on the finance function.

“Companies need to view technology as an ally in this new paradigm, not a disruptor.” Ash Noah, Managing Director (AICPA & CIMA)

Organisations increasingly rely on the office of the CFO to provide strategic insight to guide critical business decisions.

While transformation is essential to survival, many organisations still struggle when it comes to implementation execution.

There are 3 key steps to help the CFO navigate this “new normal”:

1. Achieving Operational Excellence – “Adaption” and “Adoption”. Ensure your processes are working well before implementing technology, because if you’re simply applying automation to bad processes, you won’t get the outcomes you want.
2. Enabling Digital Intelligence – Find new ways to interrogate data effectively. Ensure all stakeholders are accessing a single “version of the truth”. Data analytics is a value-generating capability, enabling the finance function to transform from a back-office cost to a value creating part of the business.
3. Influencing Strategy – Once organisations have done the first two steps, this frees up talent to focus on digital strategy. CFOs have to become more effective partners to the business and identify innovative ways of serving the customer. A crucial part of this is looking at the skill sets needed within the teams.

Our ‘Something To Consider’ snippets are framed as small, digestible, ‘dashes of insight’ around the pillars of what we define as “World Class Finance” – Process Optimization, Financial Control and Compliance, and Risk Assurance, all underpinned by technology enablement and integration.