What is the true value of finance in an organisation?

In the past, finance operations in an organisation were focused on reporting and helping to ensure value.

However, the most respected finance professionals realise that the situation has changed. Modern finance involves strategic analysis and providing valuable insights to enable the organisation to improve its financial decision making.

This provides opportunities for top finance directors and strategic business partners to make a real difference. In order to optimise these opportunities, the most successful professionals embrace modern finance initiatives such as predictive analytics, robotic process automation (RPA), and machine learning. Making the best use of this type of technology means that influential finance directors can realise the full potential of finance in their organisations. In order to achieve this full potential, the best finance professionals exhibit certain knowledge and behaviours.

Knowledge of the organisation

High performing finance professionals work with business partners to develop an in-depth understanding of the business. This includes information about KPIs and performance metrics. They put this knowledge to use when providing strategic financial planning advice to the organisation.

Agile planning and forecasting

In a competitive climate, organisations need to have financial forecasts that help them to determine their position on an ongoing basis. For this reason, the most efficient finance directors implement solutions such as rolling forecasting. This type of forecasting is valuable as it provides up to date forecasting on a rolling basis; as one month ends, a month is added to the forecast. This means that an organisation always has a financial forecast which runs for twelve months.

Having this type of forecasting in place enables successful finance professionals to work effectively with other areas of the business, such as HR and operations, to make decisions that are in the best interests of the organisation.

Simplification by automation

Finance directors that have their fingers on the pulse of modern financial initiatives recognise the value of automation. Processes such as invoicing can be simplified by the removal of manual practices. Automated processing is also more accurate and secure as machines do not make mistakes in the way that humans do.

Automating finance operations in this way helps organisations to realise the value of finance by improving efficiency and reducing risk.

The utilisation of advanced analytics

The most valued finance directors ensure that advanced analytics help to inform conversations with business partners throughout their organisations. They adopt modern features such as scenario analysis and predictive analytics. This enables them to provide productive insight that helps the organisation to act in a beneficial manner.

In order to realise the true value of finance within an organisation, the most respected finance professionals promote the implementation of automated processes. They also use the insight that they gain from forecasting and predictive analytics to inform the strategic advice that they provide to the organisation. This advice provides value to an organisation in ensuring that it makes the most beneficial financial decisions in a competitive environment.

If you are an FD/CFO looking for your next role, register with us. If you are on looking to hire an FD/CFO, get in touch.