Technological advancements such as Big Data and Blockchain have played huge roles in reshaping business functions today. With the 4th industrial revolution, FinTech efforts and automation of current financial functions also expanded its influence. In this article, we will be explaining why you should hop on the bandwagon and digitize your finance functions too.
Benefits of digitizing your finance functions
1. Decreased operational costs.
With digitization and automation of your finance functions, staff hours spent on manual tasks and human errors can be reduced. Moreover, it helps in preventing erroneous cash losses, double payments, and improves cash savings. With automated software, you can obtain analytics to influence decision making and your overall business strategy. As such, you do not need to entrust the task to another employee.
2. Resolves the issue of lack of skilled manpower in the long run.
The human resource consulting firm Robert Half conducted a study on finance departments back in 2020. Their conclusion was that 80% of CFOs interviewed foresee difficulties in recruiting and retaining skilled workers, especially people with digital profiles. Hence, implementing digital financial functions will help to resolve a portion of these issues as lesser manual labour is required.
3. Improve your business credibility.
When you digitize finance functions, it brings about higher standardization in the data used throughout the company. With better integrated planning tools and data readily available, this helps to boost employee performance and enable them to prepare accurate forecasts in shorter timeframes. 70% of CFOs surveyed by PwC have projected that digital developments will be able to positively change the way their finance organization operates, and 56% of them believe improved technology will make processes more effective.
This improves business credibility and accountability as integrated systems document all the data and records can be pulled out instantly, preventing future fraudulent practices and unethical behaviour.
4. Keep up with competitors.
Digital transformation speeds up electronic processing times and increases the volume of digital data available in your backlog. According to PwC, employees in the most efficient finance departments spend at least 75% of their time analysing and not inputting data. Furthermore, a report published by Dresner Advisory Services in 2019 showed a trend in Finance departments acquiring Big Data solutions. This allows them to benefit from real-time information and align their work with management needs to make data more reliable.
With all that said, it’s time to start going digital for your finance functions! According to Yooz, 62% of CEOs said they already started making their business digital. Moreover, 2/3 of business leaders will no longer be competitive if they cannot be significantly more digital.
We are in the era of digital finance and your company’s finance functions need to be ready to accommodate this change. CFOs need to spearhead the change towards onboarding digital technology. This can be done by greater emphasizing and take steps to keep up with the digital trends. This will allow the company to stay competitive in the fierce business climate.
In a recent survey conducted by Mckinsey on finance executives, many CFOs themselves want to spend more time on digital initiatives, but are unsure of where to begin. If you require assistance or advice on digitizing your financial functions, feel free to drop us an enquiry and we will get in touch with you shortly!
