Many finance leaders today are grappling with the pressures to find efficiencies and battle the war for talent. Leaders are challenged to meet increased expectations while navigating capacity constraints and skill gaps in key areas such as finding insights from data and the need for stronger strategic storytelling in the boardroom. The traditional approach to cost optimization – often centered on workforce reductions – no longer suffices. The conversation has shifted to better resource allocation, streamlining processes, and automating transactional activities. The call to action in the office of the CFO is to maximize efficiency and elevate capabilities. 

As organizations push to achieve more with fewer resources, the emphasis is on faster, more insightful, accurate, and timely information to inform business decisions and maintain a competitive edge.

Here are five key areas where companies are focusing their efforts:

Enhancing cost efficiency

Companies are rethinking how they approach cost efficiency – not merely by cutting costs indiscriminately, but by reducing costs as a percentage of revenue or achieving a budget that is a percentage of the total organization cost. Doing this strategically with transactions being performed centrally, and centers of excellence or business process owners aligned to the P&L or business units, can yield significant results.  

Reevaluating spending

CFOs need clear performance goals and KPIs to guide resource and spending decisions. Those insights inform what work gets done, and how. Process redesign and implementation of niche tools or bots can reduce cost, facilitate improvement, and deliver ROI without sacrificing employee satisfaction or client relationships.

Eliminate non-value-added activities and bottlenecks: 

Companies are examining transaction processes and non-value-add areas as well as identifying unnecessary or excessive spending. Then functional leads can streamline workflows and reduce inefficiencies by mapping out processes, pinpointing bottlenecks, and automating routine processes to meet the performance objectives.

Streamlining and modernizing through automation

Companies need to develop a clear blueprint for finance modernization and automation, identify which processes are ripe for automation, and confirm that the technology is implemented to maximize its potential. With our clients, we’ve seen that companies that implement AR, AP, or comprehensive close process automation can see a reduction in close process time anywhere from 20% to as much as 40%, depending on the complexity of their operations. Automating a bad process does not deliver those results. Process improvement needs to come first. 

Rethinking the ideal finance team

The ideal finance team today looks very different from what it did in the past. There are now more service centers (geographically), distributed workforces, and integrated outsourced functions. Instead of building teams around traditional functions, organizations reverse-engineer them based on internal stakeholders', customers’, investors’, and regulators' needs. One of the biggest challenges is making sure that the operating model, roles, and responsibilities are clearly defined before restructuring. To capitalize on these benefits, organizations must clarify performance expectations, SLAs, and KPIs; and be prepared to change how they work, upskill their teams, and make informed adjustments as they go. 

The future of finance

Since 2020, CFOs have seen a significant increase in efficiency in transaction areas such as AP and AR by streamlining processes to remove steps and deploying automation tools to take on repetitive tasks. The next advancements will come through enhancements that improve reporting, planning, and decision-making. Research shows fewer improvements in the more strategic areas such as FP&A, controllership, and risk management. Boards are looking for CFOs to have mature, compliant, efficient functions, and invest in value-add activities that inform the future. If you haven’t streamlined, matured, and optimized your finance function, the time is now.