Finance And Tech: An Untold Love Story

Technology is everywhere. No news in that. Technology in Finance is really not news either and here I’m not even talking about FinTech which most people have also heard of by now. Finance function across the world are trying to best of their ability to utilize technology to become more efficient. So where’s the untold story in that? And why call it a love story when there seems to be no story at all? The real story which I want to discuss with you is how the finance function can better utilize technology to help with value creation. Not from a finance function efficiency point of view but from an overall business point of view. How can Finance best possible use new tools, BI and advanced analytics to help the business optimize value creation?

Know the landscape, use the tools and tell the story

To get started on this you must know the landscape of various systems that are available which I tried to give some insights into in the article “Finance Systems For The 21st Century” but more importantly you need a strategy for how to use the wealth of tools at your disposal.

• Are you going for self-service solutions where the business can pull data in real time for themselves?
• Are you looking more into how you can better visualize performance to your stakeholders instead of your boring tables and graphs?
• Are you looking for ways getting value out of Big Data and how to handle the 4 V’s?
• Or are you simply looking for better ways for your finance team to dig into the data to create more insightful analyses and increase speed to insight?

You might say to go for all at once but be sure to consider the full implications of that as these are all separate journeys and then there are several other questions not even considered above. In any case, your strategy is where you start to tell the untold love story between Finance and technology. Because wouldn’t it be great if you could have all of above and become a completely different finance function? Think about how pleased your senior stakeholders would be if they could pull the information they need on the go without having to ask someone in Finance? Or how fantastic it would be that you could finally start talking in visuals rather than pure numbers so people outside of Finance can finally understand what you’re trying to say? And just think about all the new insights you can derive from at last being able to do some solid Big Data analysis?

If you’re in Finance technology should be your new best friend

So the benefits of Finance and Tech having an affair are certainly obvious and should definitely let it develop into something more so you can reap the long-term benefits of employing a lot more technology in your finance function. If fact, if you don’t start using technology better you will fail in your efforts to partner with the business be it a startup or a well-established company. It’s more or less a given that your company will create less value if the finance function doesn’t deliver the needed support and insights to run the business. Technology is your friend, your lover in that endeavor and you better get started now!

As always I appreciate your likes, comments, and shares to jump-start the discussion as we continue to discuss the new career path of finance professionals. You can follow me on Twitter for more insights on current developments in the finance function. I also encourage you to take a tour of my old posts on finance transformation and not least “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” which is really the starting point for the transformation. Last but not least, you should join my Finance Business Partner Forum where we will continue to discuss this topic.

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Case Study: Becoming A Finance Business Partner

Why We Need Business Partnering Transformation

How Finance Can Help When Business Is Bad

How Finance Can Become An Analytics Powerhouse

How Finance Business Partners Improve Company Performance

There Is A New Kind Of CFO Needed In Town

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Senior Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line Europe Region and is working with the transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. I have participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling to go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. I would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption. Don’t be shy! Let’s get in touch and start helping each other.

This article was first published on techstory.in