The finance organization has changed over the past few years. Formerly seen as a number-crunching department focused on reporting and balancing books, the finance department has evolved as a data-driven strategic organization focused on short- and long-term business strategies. More so, other departments now realize that finance is a valuable partner in decision-making and the key to cost savings, internal risk management, and reporting.
With these organizational changes, the finance department faces substantial internal and external pressures to not only manage day to day transactional processing, compliance, and governance, but also deliver impactful financial insights to stakeholders. The success of the finance organization depends on the CFO’s ability to adapt and leverage technology to drive transformation.
Changing Role of the CFO
Changes in the finance department bring even more change to the role of the CFO. CFOs today feel the burden of balancing fiscal performance, effectiveness, risk management, and strategic analysis. All overarching business decisions must be made with the company’s finances in mind, so the head of finance needs to have a full understanding of every business function. The CFO should spend less time managing transactional processes and more time equipping leaders and stakeholders with financial insights through digital transformation.
Technology as the Backbone of Digital Transformation
The modern CFO should embrace a digital strategy that aligns with the company’s business goals. According to a study by Aberdeen Group, 86% of best-in-class organizations have executive commitment for transformation in the finance department, in comparison to 66% of all others. Financial transformation starts with digital technologies that allow the organization to keep up with business challenges, process data more efficiently, and turn information into insights in real-time.
Technology, such as a cloud-based financial management system, can help to transform financial functions, not only cutting costs and reducing the need for laborious information entry and extraction, but also increasing visibility and decision-making across the entire organization. Adopting an innovative, cloud solution will allow CFOs to revive their finance departments and help to optimize internal processes, allowing for improved automation, employee enablement, and better performance management.
Why the Cloud for Finance?
With a modern, cloud-based solution, your business can:
- Create automated workflows to report accurate, timely data and reduce manual processes
- Audit-proof your organization’s data integrity to meet the latest accounting standards
- Make financial data accessible across your organization
- Align goals with costs and outcomes, including goals across industry verticals
- Leverage analytics to make projections that maximize profit
- Reduce closing time and streamline reporting for public companies
Interested in discovering more about how to enable transformation across your entire organization, people, and processes? Read our eBook, “6 Value Drivers for Finance & HR Transformation Success” to learn more!
