How to use technology to create value as a CFO
13th September, 2016
The role of the modern CFO is changing. Businesses now seek CFOs who are capable of more than just holding the line and being the vanguard of corporate compliance.
Cloud-based business management technology is facilitating this change by allowing CFOs and their teams to focus on value creating activities.
So how exactly can you use cloud ERP technology to be a value-creating CFO?
1. Value-chain insight
Value-creating CFOs do more than optimise performance.
Silos of data from disparate systems make it impossible to view one division’s performance relative to another.
Cloud ERP offers comprehensive tools to help CFOs understand what is going on in all areas of the business: from the warehouse to the professional service team to the sales and marketing teams and everything in between.
2. Leverage business drivers
High performance CFOs dedicate their efforts to aligning company metrics to company and industry skews to better orientate performance towards creating customer value.
Practically, this means using business intelligence tools, like Microsoft’s PowerBI, to combine enterprise-wide operational data sourced from the ERP with unlimited external data sources to create, develop and share innovative metrics that lead to value creation.
3. Cultural engagement
It’s no longer acceptable to just be the gatekeeper. Accounting, just like sales, distribution, and support, faces new expectations for customer service from external and internal clients.
Modern cloud ERP solutions put control and tools in the hands of end users to empower stakeholders to find information themselves, freeing the accounting team to focus on value-creation.
4. Integrity and presence
Cloud-based ERP solutions offer powerful financial management functionality that improves reporting, in turn allowing CFOs to share information with stakeholders. This happens via tailored dashboards in a controlled environment so they too can understand why and how decisions are being made.
Traditional ERP and CRM systems often create barriers between the finance team and other business units. As a result of these barriers, finance teams can’t efficiently collect and share data to uncover new insights and opportunities for strategic growth.
Cloud ERPs help remove the bottlenecks that inhibit a CFO’s ability to meet new demands and free them to focus on value creation.