Growth and Optimization
How CFOs Are Leading Transformation and Driving Enterprise Reinvention
Whether it’s optimizing operations and upping productivity or accelerating growth and addressing sustainability, today’s CFOs are being asked to take on more responsibility for enterprise reinvention. It’s “to the point where 68% of CFOs are driving three or more enterprise-wide transformation initiatives in parallel,” says Aneel Delawalla, who leads Accenture’s CFO and enterprise value strategy practice.
To talk about how CFOs can make better, faster, and more strategic decisions that will future-ready their organizations and set the stage for success, Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, spoke to Delawalla and Paul Carr, Accenture’s HXM Ecosystem Lead for Solutions, which includes SAP Concur.
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Run Initiatives in Parallel to Break Down Siloes
Enterprise-wide transformation initiatives led by CFOs “span the gamut from sustainability and ESG-type items, to workforce and workplace, to drive improved employee experience, to digital and process transformation, to yield productivity and processes,” Delawalla says. “It’s really about the step forward CFOs are taking and leveraging the insights of a digital core that enables them to collaborate better, but also be more predictive and prescriptive as well.”
Successful initiatives are not happening serially or in silos. “The ones that are truly unlocking business benefit, truly driving differentiated employee experience, are ones that are interconnected but running in parallel, rather than operating in their own silos, where T&E is doing something separate from accounting, separate from procurement, separate from FP&A, separate from HR,” Delawalla explains. Further, running initiatives in parallel has the benefit of compressing the timeline for enterprise reinvention.
Increased Emphasis on Employee Experience
Organizations are increasingly focused on differentiating the employee experience, and CFOs are part of this effort in numerous ways, says Dion, including automating expense processing.
Expectations for expense processing have evolved with increased digital experience. A whole generation of people joining the workforce expect to interact with an app, Carr explains. “They want to be able to do everything digital on the go,” he says. “They want to have this ecosystem of solutions behind there that makes life easy.”
Additionally, employees want to focus on creating value for the company and not be bogged down by administrative activities, Carr continues. By making expense processing as easy as possible, the finance team supports this goal. Also, automating expense processing by using AI, for example, frees up time for the finance team to focus on higher value activities. “You’re actually working on delight of the employee and getting the most that you can out of every employee, to ensure that their skillset is being used at the highest value for an organization,” says Dion.
Where to Begin? How to Choose a Starting Point
One of the biggest challenges for organizations embarking on a broader transformation journey is knowing where to start. “As powerful as CFOs are, two-thirds of them feel paralyzed, at times, because of the volume and velocity of choices coming at them and then the implications of their decisions,” says Delawalla.
Carr recommends starting with areas, such as expense management, that will engage your employees from the beginning. There are processes you can take out in isolation before you go into a mega transformation or completely change your whole operating model or the way that you work, he says. Start with pilot projects that you can build upon and have employees give feedback. That way, you can get the employees involved while you find out what does and doesn’t work, Carr recommends.
Looking Ahead: 3 Ways to Future-Proof Your Organization
Looking to the future of enterprise reinvention, here are three ways CFOs can differentiate their organization:
1. Scenario-planning capability: Successful CFOs have one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow, says Delawalla. A robust scenario-planning capability with the right internal and third-party data sources that can generate accurate scenario plans quickly will make your organization more agile and competitive.
2. Collaboration: When it comes to implementing enterprise initiatives, organizations need collaboration across the C-suite, Carr says. For example, a CFO may work with the CHRO and the CIO to enhance the expense management system. Today’s successful CFOs are also collaborating across the company by “bringing people to the table, making people feel like they’ve been heard and seen,” says Delawalla.
3. Continuous improvement: “Changes that are happening are not just static—they’re not one and done,” says Dion. It pays to cultivate a mindset of continuous improvement, so that you’re constantly learning from your experience. “Whether it’s an expense software or procurement software, or anything else, it’s that idea that this will continually grow and change,” Dion says.