• Home
  • Management
  • Finance
  • Technology
  • Sustainability
  • Reports
    • Digital Reports
    • Print Reports
    • White Papers
  • Video
  • Events

Creating financial confidence in a digital world

Creating financial confidence in a digital world

Industry view from Aptitude

Introduction

Data chaos to data exploitation

Regulatory Compliance

Digital disruption and the finance department resource

Cloud finance – are the finance departments embracing the cloud?

Efficiency & Agility

Conclusion

Chris Wade, Chief Product and Marketing Officer, Aptitude Software

In most cases, CFOs have watched as departments around them have taken steps – or leaps – into the digital world. Sales moved quickly to SaaS-based CRM solutions, manufacturing has embraced IOT technology to improve processes and decrease waste, and customer service teams use robotic processing automation (RPA) to more quickly and efficiently respond to enquiries and issues.

These moves have certainly brought improvements, but any digital transformation that leaves behind the finance department is incomplete. A finance department is typically hampered by siloed data, legacy systems, manual processes and backwards-looking reporting. This prevents it from leveraging the valuable data the finance function holds and limits its ability to provide the strategic foresight needed to empower and transform the business for success in this digital age.

The potential of a digital finance department

Investing in a digital finance transformation spurs business growth.

At a recent Gartner CFO event, the keynote, delivered by Mark Wiedemer, Gartner Group VP, talked about the unique makeup of what Gartner calls “economic growth companies”, or EGCs. Of the 1,200 organisations they studied, only 61 of them met all the criteria required to be classified as an EGC – short-term growth and margin increases, sustained long-term growth and efficient cost management.

One thing these organisations had in common was that they had, said Gartner, “become digitally relevant”. These organisations had a strong finance technology portfolio, financial data management, metrics and management reporting and finance analytics. This, in part, was allowing them to achieve growth that surpassed their peers, despite having the same external business pressures.

From governance to guidance

A finance department that is truly digital has a few identifiable traits.

Data is centralised, granular and accessible across the organisation. A trusted data foundation is available for use by cognitive tools such as machine learning and natural language processing. With data now unleashed for use by departments other than finance, its value grows.

A fully digitised finance function also has complete control over day-to-day and regulatory operations. It has systems that support a transparent view of data and data lineage and automated, real-time reporting. New business models, mergers or compliance demands can be addressed with agility.

Finally, digital finance departments have overcome the inertia and resistance to change that have plagued CFOs when it comes to cloud, and taken a strategic approach to implementing cloud solutions. The benefits of moving to the cloud are widely acknowledged, and cloud-native companies are leading the way in increased revenue, financial performance, improved business agility and enhanced customer experiences.

The time for finance

The promises of the digital age are not coming – they’re already here. CFOs and finance departments need to push their organisations to take advantage of every opportunity to evolve their data, systems, processes and people to support business growth.


For more on how Aptitude Software is creating a world of financial confidence, please click here. 

  • Industry View from Aptitude

© Business Reporter 2021

Terms of Use

Privacy Policy

Top Articles

Speaking the same language: how the board and IT can work together to navigate adverse events

In 2020 Covid-19 provided significant challenges to organisations around the globe, forcing many businesses to reconsider how they operate.

How content services are helping businesses look to the future

With more content in the world than ever before, how enterprises manage that content is becoming more important by the…

How CIOs can take the lead on delivering a world-class digital customer experience

As more and more consumer transactions are carried out online, digital customer experience is more important than ever

Related Articles

How content services are helping businesses look to the future

How content services are helping businesses look to the future

How CIOs can take the lead on delivering a world-class digital customer experience

How CIOs can take the lead on delivering a world-class digital customer experience

The new table stakes: digital supply chain ecosystems

The new table stakes: digital supply chain ecosystems

Investing in audio makes business sense

Investing in audio makes business sense

Turn employees and business customers into advocates with an exceptional support experience

Turn employees and business customers into advocates with an exceptional support experience

Paid Slider

You can choose paid_slider from dropdown.


Example : slide-gray, slide-white


    Cancel