WHITE

PAPER

Building a business
case for finance
transformation

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Accelerate through uncertainty.

Digital transformation has accelerated across industries due to the need

for flexibility and a faster response to changing market conditions. In the
current dynamic business environment, failing to achieve a high level of
responsiveness will reduce a company’s ability to thrive.

Market and economic uncertainty have put enormous pressure on CFOs to

reforecast, reduce expenditure, and preserve cash flow while driving business
transformation and aiming for growth. Pressure is amplified by manual
processes that are time-consuming and prone to error. Daily finance tasks are
essential but, in many cases, manual processes make it impossible to manage
these tasks securely, efficiently, and accurately. This has created a need to
digitally transform financial processes by adopting automation that delivers
meaningful data management and streamlines business processes.

The latest Workday CFO Indicator Survey reports that nearly half of CFOs
surveyed had not yet implemented any finance digital transformation
initiatives.1 For most organisations, digital transformation was planned to
occur across the next 12-24 months or longer, with resources allocated
accordingly. The research found that 34 percent of CFOs planned to
prioritise finance digital transformation in one year, compared with
five percent who were focusing on it at the height of the pandemic.2
A key challenge facing CFOs is the need to build a strong business
case for finance digital transformation, especially when external
market impacts are forcing finance teams to transform earlier than
they had originally planned.

1. W
 orkday, Finance Digital Transformation CFO Indicator Survey 2020, page 3
https://www.adaptiveplanning.com/sites/default/files/assets/200825_Report_
Adaptive_Planning_ART.pdf
2. W
 orkday, Finance Digital Transformation CFO Indicator Survey 2020, page 4 https://
www.adaptiveplanning.com/sites/default/files/assets/200825_Report_Adaptive_
Planning_ART.pdf

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The benefits of finance digital
transformation
The benefits of finance digital transformation are clear. According to the Workday
CFO Indicator Survey, there is a direct link between financial digital transformation
and agile business practices, which include effective and timely decision-
making and more efficient finance processes such as reporting, planning, and
financial close.

Businesses that have already completed their digital transformation journey are
known as digital accelerators. They are better able to focus on driving innovation,
growth, and resilience than other organisations, such as digital novices, that have
not yet adopted finance digital transformation. Digital novices, by contrast, may
still be caught up with manual processes that don’t deliver actionable insights,
and therefore limit their ability to innovate, grow and become resilient to market
changes. These businesses often experience recurring bottlenecks caused by
related dependencies and the need to wait for others to complete tasks before
the next step in the process can be completed. Operational inefficiencies cost
these businesses time, money and talent.

Digital accelerators consistently perform better compared with digital novices

when it comes to: efficacy of reporting, planning, and financial close; confidence
in budget forecasts; and the ability to react quickly to change.

Figure 1: Finance transformation maturity curve

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The finance transformation maturity curve, shown in Figure 1, illustrates where
an organisation sits in its journey, benchmarking its progress from reactive,
historical-based analysis and manual processes, to defining areas of improvement
that deliver greater value to business processes, planning, and performance.
Progressing along the finance transformation journey means heading towards
automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to drive more efficient
processes and better business outcomes.

Finance transformation is a journey. Regardless of where an organisation sits

on the maturity curve today, continual business improvement is essential, so it’s
necessary to assess where the organisation ultimately wants to sit on the curve.
Businesses can build a business case for finance digital transformation by mapping
out a phased approach that demonstrates return on investment at the end of
each phase.

How businesses can progress their

finance transformation journey
1. Automate with smarter technology Automation eliminates
Manual tasks take time with myriad opportunities for errors. Making decisions tedious and error-prone
manual tasks, making it
based on information gleaned through manual reporting is fraught with
easier to source, collect
risk. Organisations that use legacy tools, siloed applications and static data
and prepare data, perform
visualisations will find it difficult to collaborate effectively or make highly
scenario modelling, and
informed strategic decisions. leverage interactive
Automation eliminates tedious and error-prone manual tasks, making it easier dashboards and reports.
to source, collect and prepare data, perform scenario modelling, and leverage
interactive dashboards and reports. Automation tools dramatically increase the
speed and accuracy of reporting, delivering insights, what-if scenarios, and the
ability to pivot dynamically to meet market conditions.

Organisations can use robotic process automation (RPA) and apply centralised
business rules to automate business-as-usual activities. This allows finance
team members to concentrate on higher-value activities, creative problem-
solving, and innovative solutions for business growth.

Businesses are held back when numerous departments place competing

demands on the finance team to provide the reports and insights they need
to support planning and decision-making, such as resource allocation and its
financial implications. Self-service reporting and dashboards give time back
to the finance department while empowering other departments to get the
detailed data they need in near-real time.

Automation is the initial stage in the finance transformation journey. It delivers

significant benefits even for digital novices, and these benefits increase
exponentially as businesses advance along the maturity curve.

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2. Integrate technology across the business 30 percent of CFOs
say critical data is not
A critical component of the finance transformation journey is to integrate
always available in real
technology assets, applications, and data across the business.
time and 45 percent are
Integration overcomes issues caused by siloed applications and disparate data. impacted by conflicting
Unifying data from different systems and divisions helps build an overarching data between finance
picture of business performance to inform strategic decision-making. According and operations.
to the CFO Indicator Survey, CFOs may struggle with decision-making due
to inefficient access to data and the ability to glean insights from data across
the organisation. 30 percent of CFOs say critical data is not always available
in real time and 45 percent are impacted by conflicting data between finance
and operations.3

Surprisingly, only six percent of CFOs have one common dataset for all financial
data, while 12 percent have one common dataset for operational data. Most
CFOs have at least some disparate datasets, making data aggregation and
analytics challenging.4

As organisations introduce more business applications to track company data,

finance teams may find it even more challenging to meet reporting deadlines if
the information can only be accessed manually through separate systems and
files. Centralising company data gives finance teams a consolidated view of
the information they require, saving countless hours. It also connects financial
outcomes with operational inputs and drivers, removing guesswork from the
decision-making process. Ultimately, integration is key to enabling finance teams to
become more responsive and providing decision-makers with relevant and timely
data that encompasses an enterprise-wide view to support sound decision-making.

3. W
 orkday, Finance Digital Transformation CFO Indicator Survey 2020, page 9 https://www.
adaptiveplanning.com/sites/default/files/assets/200825_Report_Adaptive_Planning_ART.pdf
4. W
 orkday, Finance Digital Transformation CFO Indicator Survey 2020, page 12 https://www.
adaptiveplanning.com/sites/default/files/assets/200825_Report_Adaptive_Planning_ART.pdf

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3. Innovate with advanced analytics 30 percent of digital
accelerators used
Data is at its most valuable when it delivers actionable insights in a timely fashion.
artificial intelligence
Almost half (49 percent) of CFOs reported that their finance teams struggled to
(AI) to routinely provide
deliver meaningful insights from available data. By contrast, 30 percent of digital prescriptive, personalised,
accelerators used artificial intelligence (AI) to routinely provide prescriptive, and prioritised insights
personalised, and prioritised insights to the wider business. Only three percent of to the wider business.
digital novices said they could deliver valuable data insights to the business.5

Innovating with advanced analytics is an essential step along the curve for
finance teams to extract maximum value from integrated data. Finance teams
are empowered to run what-if scenarios faster and with more variables, making
it easier to assess and identify the best path forward. Scenario modelling is
even more powerful when the questions and variables are managed by AI and
machine learning algorithms that let strategic decision-makers drill into granular
information at the highest levels, with a much lower margin for human error.

Using advanced statistical techniques and algorithms, and replacing static

data sets with dynamic and interactive data sets delivers more sophisticated
business insights from data. This offers decision-makers more informed analysis
and conclusions based on the most timely, accurate, and detailed data.

Importantly, finance reports are not always read by finance professionals. By

tailoring reports to the audience’s needs, the reporting process becomes a
strategic conversation, rather than a confusion of numbers. Data visualisation,
such as charts and graphs, are crucial to good analysis and let a broader group
of business stakeholders identify potential problems or outliers faster.

4. Accelerate with smarter findings 59 percent of CFOs

To accelerate the benefits of automation, leading organisations advance to agreed it was the ability
predictive, prescriptive, and even cognitive processes that drive better business
to identify opportunities
and solve problems that
outcomes. This gives digital accelerators a massive competitive advantage over
would make successful
their less digitally mature competitors.
financial professionals
Digital accelerators are no longer bogged down in the manual elements of financial stand out from the crowd.
functions. Instead, they contribute strategically to business growth and resilience.
Modern CFOs value predictive modelling, scenario-based planning, and risk
identification and management capabilities in their team above all else. The least-
desired skill is spreadsheet proficiency; demonstrating that finance professionals
must be able to think strategically about data and its impact on business direction.
In fact, when asked about the most important skills for the future, 59 percent of
CFOs agreed it was the ability to identify opportunities and solve problems that
would make successful financial professionals stand out from the crowd.6

With automation and advanced data analytics in place, finance teams can
develop a true understanding of the cost to acquire and the cost to serve
customers, across varying scenarios. Risk is managed more effectively by
computing probability and the consequence of failure. For finance teams, this
helps drive ongoing integrated business planning that supports organisational
resilience and accelerated business growth.

5. W
 orkday, Finance Digital Transformation CFO Indicator Survey 2020, page 11 https://www.
adaptiveplanning.com/sites/default/files/assets/200825_Report_Adaptive_Planning_ART.pdf
6. W
 orkday, Finance Digital Transformation CFO Indicator Survey 2020, page 14 https://www.
adaptiveplanning.com/sites/default/files/assets/200825_Report_Adaptive_Planning_ART.pdf

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Four steps to accelerate finance
transformation
Making a business case to accelerate transformation requires a clear roadmap.
There are four key steps businesses can take to achieve this:
About Workday
1. Consolidate data into a single source of truth so
that it can be managed more effectively. Workday is a leading
provider of enterprise cloud
2. Invest in technology that delivers forward-looking applications for finance and
visibility and supports risk management. human resources. Founded
3. Identify and address skills gaps to maximise the in 2005, Workday delivers
benefits of new technology initiatives. financial management,
human capital management,
4. Rethink key performance indicators to encourage
planning, and analytics
experimentation and overcome resistance to change.
applications designed for the
Consolidating data and investing in technology that delivers real-time insights world’s largest companies,
to improve visibility helps finance teams better manage volatility, navigate educational institutions,
organisational complexity, meet compliance requirements, and drive the and government agencies.
direction of operations. It also helps to improve processes and efficiencies Organisations ranging from
during the monthly finance cycle. This elevates the finance function from medium-sized businesses to
purely a mechanism for historical reporting to an integral and indispensable Fortune 50 enterprises have
part of strategic, proactive decision-making. It also leads to increased selected Workday.
workplace engagement for finance professionals that results in better
business outcomes.

It’s important to note that upskilling and maintaining communication with

employees is vital during finance transformation. The Workday CFO Indicator
Survey revealed that a lack of technology skills and resistance to change can
hinder financial digital transformation, with 34 percent of CFOs reporting
they lacked the skills to use the technology once it was implemented.7 This
highlights the importance of working with a trusted partner that roadmaps
the organisation’s transformation journey, while also promoting best-practice
and using cloud-based applications to maximise return on investment for the
business at every stage.

Talk with Tridant to learn how to transform your

financial processes, focus resources on strategic
planning, and accelerate targeted business outcomes.

7. W
 orkday, Finance Digital Transformation
CFO Indicator Survey 2020, page 7 https://
www.adaptiveplanning.com/sites/default/
files/assets/200825_Report_Adaptive_
Planning_ART.pdf
About Tridant Contact

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strategic, financial and operational processes with analytics-enabled planning info@tridant.com
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From strategy to execution, our technology experts assure a seamless
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Since 2007, Tridant’s consulting, design, deployment and managed support

services have been empowering organisations to meet increasing demand for
real-time data-led insights and optimised business performance.
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