Gone are the days when a finance professional’s only concern was finance. The fact that terms like “tech stack”, “low code”, and “BI” increasingly fit into the CFO lexicon perhaps marks the change and emphasizes a maturing need for finance pros at every level to keep up on landscapes well beyond accounting.
Considering that the CFO’s role involves more responsibility now than ever before, and that they must set aside time for strategic thinking, a problem arises around both available time and required skill. The problem is especially pressing since the top finance function leads not just short-term but long-term direction, affecting every facet of business.
Across organizations and industries, the responsibility of a CFO varies depending on a huge number of organizational traits. Because of their role in cost/value assessments, finance leaders can drive everything from talent acquisition to digitization, with the only constant being that their plates are full and spilling over. Yet in the past several years there’s been a growing expectation that the CFO play a leading part in developing and driving toward a company’s yearslong vision.
Even for the rare company whose decision-making doesn’t revolve around reporting, the finance function is and has been the final say in stopping and starting digital transformation projects, including automation, roboticizing processes, analytics, and other key digitizing work. This has given finance professionals the technology reigns, to the extent that CFOs are stepping up, formally or informally, as the new Chief Digital Officers.
Included in that capacity is a commitment to navigate a complex landscape of technology strategies. As the cost/value decision maker, the CFO is quickly advancing to make the call on which major automations to pursue and which process improvements carry the biggest ROI. These are investment decisions, plain and simple, but only recently is the finance executive recognized as a major player in making them.
This strategic thinking calls for a broad overview of the many tools and solutions and how they do or don’t fit into the long-term investment and automation strategy. But we commonly hear from CFOs that their major roadblocks are knowing where to start and what questions to ask when assessing strategic tech moves. The answer to that question is suggested in the first two paragraphs of this post: Automation.
CFOs and finance executives have too much going on. Their teams have too much going on. Their processes have too many moving parts run by humans who are too busy. One of the first answers to the nagging question where to start digitizations is automation.
Of course there’s no single way to approach that, but if the last year taught us anything, it’s that waiting is not an option. Whether you start with 30 minutes of research each week or 3 hours every day working with a dev team, nothing will improve on its own. The ROI CFOs are charged with creating will not come without investment. Retirement savings don’t grow without a daily pay-in. The race can’t be won without that very first step. It’s no different for the finance professional’s key projects. The smart CEO makes time for the automation journey to begin. That’s called digital transformation. And it’s a mandate.
Alright, but how? First, the CFO’s staff can offer insights into bottlenecks and inefficiencies in daily processes. Leaders must make time to ask their team questions about those problems. They can also leverage the advice of consultants in the same areas. Finally, CFOs should keep an eye on software touting major automation benefits. There’s an abundance of software out there, most of which offers some sort of free trial and/or freemium account. Get in there, get your hands dirty, and play with apps. It’s the only way to learn the landscape
Investing time in those three areas will surface true insight. The next things are measuring and executing on a project with planned ROI.
It should be clear by now that the modern finance professional role has changed. It’s not just finance that fills their plates but strategic investments in areas of business that drive growth and efficiencies that stretch across business functions. CFO is a proactive technology role now more than ever. Developing a sharp understanding of the software ecosystem and, importantly, making planned moves toward digital transformation is no longer the way of the future but the necessity of the present.
The Interject Financials Team is dedicated to building smart, simple technology solutions from business-first perspective. Our years of combined experience translate to quicker implementations, wider adoption, and more efficiency in your business processes.
For more info on Interject’s solutions, email communications@gointerject.com
