The following is a guest post from Jeff Bronaugh, a partner in the business transformation practice at CrossCountry Consulting. Opinions are the author’s own.
In a world where transformation is the new normal, CFOs face mounting pressure to deliver value and clarity with speed. Gone are the days when a superficial business analysis would suffice. Now more than ever, CFOs must go beyond high-level summaries to make key, real-time decisions. They need a meaningful, unified data architecture to produce core insights that drive real ROI and fuel enterprise evolution.
According to industry estimates, 46% of finance leaders lack full visibility into their company’s financial performance, and another 43% are unable to make informed decisions because of data challenges. However, embarking on a data-driven journey can help solve persistent internal and external challenges, including the scarcity of skilled accountants, calculating risk tolerance and collaborating on enterprise technology.
Addressing the talent shortage
The ongoing shortage of talent in corporate finance departments is reaching a breaking point, with regulators noting an increase in delayed audits and a reduction in financial statement quality. To help alleviate some of this pressure, data and process optimization are critical, particularly for the use of automation, analytics and artificial intelligence tools.
By automating transactional activities like reconciliations, journal entries and consolidations, finance teams deliver greater speed and accuracy in their reporting and analysis. Less manual accounting work allows staff to focus on more strategic tasks and experience less stress during busy periods. They can find efficiencies for procurement savings and support internal team development and upskilling. With 58% of finance departments implementing AI solutions into their workflows, teams can rebalance accounting workloads and facilitate the digital enablement of staff.
Forward-thinking CFOs can enable this pivot by implementing technology that reimagines the role of accounting and elevates the value that finance brings to the business at large. Leveraging accounting and finance departments to drive transformation fuels the connected flow of data and available insights CFOs have at their command.
Balancing risk-taking with risk mitigation
CFOs are also grappling with how to calibrate the organization’s risk tolerance against the demand for sizable transformations that have the propensity to introduce additional risk. To make strategic, risk-aware decisions, CFOs need a much wider and deeper set of insights than historical data can provide.
With CFOs increasingly involved in risk management discussions, they need access to real-time data from across the business for a complete view of end-to-end operations. This level of detail allows them to unify operational and financial data into single systems while also integrating external data sources, like market trends, economic indicators and industry benchmarks. Holistic and predictive decision support enables CFOs to quickly and accurately forecast, deploy capital and remain ahead of risk curves in a controlled digital environment. In effect, CFOs can see around once unknown corners.
At an organizational level, companies can pursue growth and compliance initiatives more strategically and efficiently. Activities such as corporate transactions, sustainability reporting requirements, cybersecurity enhancement and annual audit readiness are all enhanced with a balanced and informed appetite for risk.
Collaborating on enterprise technology
As the roles of the CFO and chief information officer (CIO) converge, CFOs are becoming more heavily involved in enterprise technology decision-making. Core organizational IT systems like ERP, HRIS, CRM, SCM and more — and their respective scalability and compatibility — have an enormous impact on corporate infrastructure and capital expenditures. Layer in functional point solutions and enterprise AI platforms, and it’s clear the CFO’s financial oversight of and advocacy for IT investments is critical to transformation success.
The key is drawing a throughline between these major but necessary technology investments and bottom-line business goals. CFOs must get transformation right the first time around to avoid wasting resources and undermining the credibility of future initiatives. With the global market for enterprise software projected to reach over $610 billion by 2032, CFOs with the right data at their fingertips can better evaluate and project the ROI of systems transformations and ensure alignment with strategic objectives. This is only possible when real-time enterprise data can reach the CFO’s desk.
The future of data integration
Modern CFOs are seeking to design a systematic way to act on critical KPIs, drive untapped competitive advantage, and support compliance-forward decision-making. Finance leaders who can effectively harness the power of data are better positioned to meet today’s challenges and drive maximum value. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.
