After two years of one unprecedented global event after another, the word at the top of every C-suite’s strategic plan is “resilience.” The last few years have taught business leaders one incredibly important lesson: They must implement resilience at the core of their companies.
That resilience starts at finance. Before the pandemic, many finance departments were undergoing serious transformations and re-evaluating processes for inefficiencies and waste. Since March 2020, those transformation efforts have not only been accelerated, but broadened such that the share of finance leaders who report being responsible for their companies’ digital activities between 2016-2021 has more than tripled.
The most successful companies since the onset of the pandemic are fluent in proactive functions, not reactive. Proactive finance teams can help companies absorb the blows of “black swan” events like COVID, because they are always evolving and learning. Elasticity in finance may sound counterintuitive, but it is actually essential for companies to navigate complex times and adapt effectively to situations as they unfold.
Resilience is a Priority in Finance
CFOs increasingly are responsible for implementing better solutions, improving accessibility to financial resources and maximizing resilience up and down the business.
CFOs in particular place a renewed priority on resilience. A 2022 study found 81% of CFOs are feeling optimistic, or highly optimistic, about the financial prospects of their company, despite 95% having rated uncertainty levels as being higher than normal.
Finance teams balance concerns of variable costs while emphasizing the importance of agility amid potential decreases in revenue and tighter budgets than normal. With the right tools, finance can utilize real-time data to improve visibility across the organization.
Finding those tools doesn’t just mean finding and adopting the right software. It also means a cultural and organizational shift to using those tools and making sure they’re in the hands of the right people within the business. It is up to finance to get that stakeholder buy-in and seed the appetite for data and insights. Support from the rest of the business is essential in future-proofing a company with resilience and agility baked in.
Accelerating the Adoption of New Technologies
Fast-growing companies are actively investing in scalable financial tech stacks to both weather and overcome difficult situations. A best-in-class financial tech stack eliminates tedious manual tasks and empowers employees to recognize their value. Specifically through automation adoption, finance teams can focus more on critical functions like planning, forecasting, accounting and budgeting—all with more speed and insight.
This echelon of digital transformation is, largely, a response to remote work, but also a realization that intuitive software solutions facilitate faster, more accurate activities that save workers time—and stress. Digital adoption by finance is more common among best-performing companies and their use of automation has tripled in those finance departments since 2018.
Finance is the foundation of resilient, competitive businesses. And in a world that feels like there is a new unprecedented crisis around every corner, resilience planning is worth its weight in gold.
In resilience planning, tech adoption is an investment in making your workers’ jobs easier. That investment does more than save them from burnout, but it also saves the company from high turnover rates or shock waves that come from pandemic-level crises. This transformation can’t happen in a vacuum, which is why finance plays such a critical role in accelerating the demand and, more importantly, the adoption of new technologies.
Finance as a Strategy Leader
In today’s digital climate, organizations require data to stay flexible and accessible. Integrating resilience across the organization requires the finance team to guide strategic priorities, such revenue growth, capital, investments and more. However, financial operations should also contribute to the expansion and enhancement of the company’s overall goals and decision-making processes.
In fact, the most innovative leaders are not just sustaining, but growing their businesses by empowering finance teams with resources and authority. These leaders know the future of finance includes strategizing and predicting industry trends and having complete visibility into the business.
While these teams still have to produce detailed financial roadmaps and oversee payables, they are also a key partner in establishing company goals that drive long-term prosperity.
Rising to the challenge, finance departments continue to implement company-wide changes like technology adoption and strategic, future-oriented mindsets. Amid balancing their core responsibilities, responding to crises, and protecting employees, the most successful and effective finance teams look to the future to figure out how to transform and stay proactive.
Finance is the foundation of resilient, competitive businesses. And in a world that feels like there is a new unprecedented crisis around every corner, resilience planning is worth its weight in gold.
Chen Amit is co-founder and CEO of Tipalti. Chen is a veteran high tech executive and repeat entrepreneur. Prior to Tipalti, Chen was CEO of Atrica, a Carrier Ethernet company that Nokia-Siemens acquired. Before Atrica, He was co-founder and CEO of Verix, a provider of business intelligence software. At ECI Telecom, Chen founded their ADSL business unit and led it from inception to $100 million in annual sales. He earned a BSc from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology and an MBA from INSEAD.
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