The Digital CFO: 4 Trends CFOs must watch in 2022
In today’s ever changing world where everything is becoming digitalized and automated, CFOs need to get on board and take the lead in innovation. The COVID-19 global pandemic has changed the way the world operates, from consumer habits to workplace culture, human behavior, and interactions. The role of the CFO has now evolved into a strategic and visionary position and is becoming a key player in navigating company growth.
To succeed in the new role of the CFO here are 4 trends CFOs must watch:
Digitization:
Insights from a recent Gartner CFO survey showed that 66% of CFOs expected to spend more time on technology in 2021. However, there are also reports that show CFOs struggle to achieve their digitization goals. This is due to a lack of clear strategy of technology trends that impact the organization, specifically the understanding of how these technologies function collaboratively with other functions within the organization.
Therefore, CFOs need to adopt technologies that connect the different silos within the organization, and thus increase the efficiency across the board uniting all data into one source of truth.
Furthermore, implementing digitization allows CFOs to navigate growth opportunities that are data driven, forward looking, risk aware, and as previously mentioned, collaborative. Digitization should support CFOs to utilize insights across the organization for accurate strategic decision making, governance, and risk management.
Reporting and data visualization
Transforming finance teams into a digital organization is the first step to adding value and maximizing efficiency in reporting and analysis. This must also apply to data visualization tools in order to improve user experience and provide actionable insights. Data visualization refers to the display of data in a graphical form. It provides an easy way to understand and analyze data for improved decision-making and saving time by summarizing a large amount of information into an easy-to-grasp format that can be understood within seconds.
Data visualization allows everyone in the company to see the full data picture and make informed decisions based on complete information rather than a limited view of the data. It enables executives to have accurate knowledge of processes and performance data, resulting in more transparency and more accountability.
Real-time analytics
Automation and digitization have introduced the democratization of data, business intelligence and data science, and have eliminated the competitive advantage of data scientists. Today’s innovative solutions allow second and third lines of defense to use simple dashboards to effectively analyze and predict opportunities and to gain decision-making confidence based on AI data driven insights in real-time.
Real-time analytics is based on continuous monitoring, meaning that financial teams can proactively respond to any problem detected in real-time before it becomes an actual risk. As financial teams juggle a lot of parallel tasks, they need a solution that acts like an alert inbox system which provides insights and alerts based on risk and priority. This results in enhanced performance accountability, impactful KPI measurement and proactive problem solving.
Hyperautomation
Surveys and polls by Gartner in 2021 show that over 80% of organizations consistently self-report increased or continued investment in hyperautomation initiatives. The Gartner’s definition of hyperautomation incorporates a variety of tools including RPA, AI, BPM, and more, to automate business processes from start to finish.
The need for hyperautomation adoption, stems from the C-suite demand for acceleration and growth through business model innovation or disruption. It enables companies to be more prepared for the future, adding value to revenue forecasting, cash flow monitoring, mitigation of risk and eventually evaluating ESG risks and opportunities and executing transformation.
Conclusion
Adopting innovation transforms CFOs decision making and the way they can influence the top of the pyramid. Digitization and automation affirm the CFOs decision making as it no longer relies on partial or biased information but on accurate real-time data, giving the CFO the power of knowledge. Embracing innovation and implementing one or more of the trends above is not only a highly effective way to improve the day-to-day operations, but also causes the CFOs to become key players in shaping the organizations strategy and vision.
