The Transformation to Digital Finance
Digital finance transformation is a way to improve the performance of the finance department by using digital technologies to integrate and automate business processes. Improving performance isn’t just about efficiency and cost savings, though. “Improving” can mean lowering risk, achieving greater visibility into opportunities, shortening process cycles and completing core processes sooner as well as increasing the potential to attract and retain the best employees. All these improvements translate into a finance organization that is far better able to have a strategic partnership with the rest of the corporation. Our Office of Finance benchmark research finds that nine out of 10 organizations say their finance organization should play a more strategic role in their company.
Digital transformation means shifting more of the work the department does manually using emailed spreadsheets to software and systems. A practical approach to the transformation process is to undertake the change in a series of initiatives rather than a single big-step over¬haul. This approach is preferred because there’s usually limited staff time available for a singular focus on transformation.
Moreover, a step-by-step approach enables departments to gather success metrics and apply lessons learned so they can better manage the transformation project. In determining the order of transformation projects, executives should prioritize those that will deliver a high payoff with limited risk. Sourcing and procurement is a good place to start.