3 Main Challenges to Overcome with Digital Finance Transformation

Accelytics’ CEO, Ash Jain sits down with finance experts, Mike Newberry and Steven Gnatovich, to discuss current financial topics and challenges in the market. In this discussion, our financial experts dive into the challenges companies face when embarking on a financial transformation journey.

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With digital finance transformation being a key strategy in many organizations, why are so many organizations struggling in today’s new age?

There are a bevy of challenges when it comes to transformation, many of which are specific to the organization. In general, the common challenges a financial organization faces boils down to change tolerance, organizational capability evaluation and paradigm of speed.

Change Tolerance
We all know change is hard. What we see over and over again is a protective change tolerance. Members of the finance team are protective over their set of processes or business tasks and they are hesitant to change what they’re comfortable executing.

When the business needs the team to work significant hours to be able to help them run the business, or be able to close the books or report on the business, it gives the team members the feeling of a secure position. If there’s a technology that eliminates a core function of their job, it can lead to fear and hesitation across the finance team.

Company and Capability Evaluation
An organizational evaluation is a key part in determining your transformation needs and goals. Many organizations want to move their culture of finance to be a true business partner, that runs itself, but if there hasn't been an evaluation, do they have the tools and resources to do that?

Organizations must ask themselves: are we really prepared to handle the disruption of change? What are our capabilities? Do they have the resources to do that? Are their resources prepared? Are they properly trained to do the job that your organization is now expecting?

By assessing your organization's maturity and capabilities up front will set up your project and technology roadmap for success.

Paradigm of Speed
Speed is required for agile change within financial organization’s in today’s digital times. Without the speed, it just won’t work. When you're choosing technology products to enable the transformation, that selection, and how they fit together, is so important. The technology needs to be implemented fast and without down-time from the users.

Overcoming These 3 Challenges
With a proper assessment and analysis of your organization, you can eliminate many of the challenges companies face embarking on this digital finance transformation journey. At Accelytics, we begin our projects with an organizational assessment and discovery sessions to truly understand the business and your goals. Our finance experts will dive into your organizational challenges and opportunities to develop a roadmap outlining the most value driven solutions.

By implementing a finance solution like Anaplan, it is easy to migrate data into this platform from your current systems with little need to tap into IT resources. The users also receive extensive training on using the program for complete confidence and high end-user adoption.

In the end, it is up to leadership to make the decision on implementing new technologies. The CFO needs to lead and guide the team in technology selection and adoption. Choosing a solution that is business-owned, easy to use and enabled for a quick transition is key to overcoming the most common challenges when it comes to adopting new technology.

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If you're looking to begin your Digital Transformation Journey, email us at insights@accelytics.com.