Speaker highlight - Eric Adam

The world of finance is evolving at breakneck speed, and staying ahead of the curve is crucial for success. At World Finance Forum London, we bring together industry leaders and visionaries to share their insights and equip you with the knowledge and strategies you need to thrive in this dynamic landscape.

Ahead of the event, we spoke with Eric Adam who's going to be joining our opening panel talking about how FP&A can be used to advise strategy and drive sustainable growth.

Read on for a taste of the valuable insights you'll gain at World Finance Forum London!

What are your predictions for finance over the next 18 months?

A former manager told me that when she started working in Finance decades ago, consolidating financials looked like receiving every day numbers through various faxes, summing them up on a paper using a calculator, and type them manually with a typewriter. While this may sound ludicrous today, it most importantly highlights how technology has impacted Finance.

Today, Finance faces continuous disruption from technology. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will continue to redefine the boundaries between human work and automation.

"Artificial intelligence is set to impact 40% of jobs around the world, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned recently."

There is now the particularity that these changes will not only impact low-qualified jobs but also senior positions. “Historically, automation and information technology have tended to affect routine tasks, but one of the things that sets AI apart is its ability to impact high-skilled jobs,” said Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director

In this context, the only way humans can compete is to double-down on our humanity and soft skills, like creative intelligence and influencing skills. In an epoch of fast-changing economical and geopolitical conditions, the capability of Finance leaders to adapt will prove more than ever crucial to manage opportunities and risks in rapidly evolving situations.

As a finance leader, how important is business partnering to a successful organization?

It is naturally essential. As a Finance leader, my team’s mission is to support our stakeholders set, achieve, and measure performance against operational and financial ambitions. The business needs us to bring a robust Finance expertise, as well as an active business partnering approach. This requires understanding and answering the business needs well. For me concretely, it means:

• Displaying curiosity and interest for details

My company, Insulet, operates in the Medical Devices industry, a highly regulated environment where each country we operate in has their own set of rules and business models. This requires a lot of curiosity to understand the specificities and restrictions we need to deal with, while actively seeking for opportunities. Finance should not limit themselves to analyzing numbers but it is the understanding that come beyond which can add the most value.

• Keeping track with organisation

The International turnover I manage has grown from $120 millions in 2017 to around $400 millions in 2023. This has come with major organizational and business changes that my team continuously needs to adapt to. As a result, it is crucial for Finance leaders to contribute to the success of their organization by adapting their own team’s structure as well.

• Maintaining strong connections and communications

To successfully operate as an organization, Finance needs to communicate well with the business. Finance role can carry some complexity as we can either appear as the team player and the referee. Finance leaders can reinforce business partnering by participating to business meetings and demonstrate their added-value. They can especially help there by bridging qualitative insights with numbers and deliver complex information with a simplified delivery through visualization.

There are a lot of opportunities for Finance leaders to make the most of their business partnering relationships. These include mentorship opportunities with senior leaders we cooperate with and development opportunities within the business organisation.

Can you reveal any inflation-coping strategies you’re employing?

We are like everyone affected by inflationary pressures. For us producing medical devices, the costs of electronic components and semiconductor chips is an example of an issue we have been dealing in the recent past. We have managed around those challenges successfully. Created in 2000, Insulet is profitable since 2018 and we are working hard to continue growing profitably!

We are continuing to build a consistent value offer with our innovations. In the Medical Devices industry, in many cases, it is not the end customer paying for the product but a separate payor organisation, either the Public Health Authorities, e.g. the NHS in the UK, or public or private Health Insurers. Our approach is to continue to deliver innovation that brings value to the patients and benefit the entire healthcare systems. We spent 14% of our revenues on Research & Development in 2022.

"Demonstrating the value of innovation with clinical studies and evidence generation helps us collaborate with Public and Private organisations to value our new products fairly."

Besides, we are constantly working on optimizing our cost structure and allocation. As I manage a scope of 25 countries, how we allocate our resources between our different geographies and product ranges is a constant focus of my team.

In terms of tools and software, can you reveal what you’re using and how important they are to getting the job done well?

As a fast-growing company, we are currently going through major systems implementations to plan for our future development. We have now successfully implemented a new global ERP with SAP S4/HANA and preparing for the imminent go-live of our new planning tool SAC-P. This is a major milestone for us which will ensure we have the resources and tools to achieve our future ambitions.

This is just a taste of the incredible speaker lineup we have in store for you at World Finance Forum London. Join us for a unique opportunity to:

• Connect with industry leaders and gain valuable insights from their experiences.
• Discover actionable strategies to future-proof your career in finance.
• Engage in thought-provoking discussions shaping the future of the industry.

?? Register now to secure your spot at World Finance Forum London to hear from Eric and 30 other leading voices in Finance on these topics and much more: https://events.futureforums.com/world-finance-forum-london-sep#/tickets?lang=en