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Traditional finance functions include financial reporting, financial planning, risk management, accounting, setting products and services’ pricing, to name a few. In the past, finance leaders were more tied to traditional ways of working and legacy systems but were less embraced to innovation amongst other corporate functions.
In the digital era, global and local market landscape, customer expectations and business needs are ever changing. To stay competitive or even at the forefront in the fast-changing world, more organizations have embarked on a digital transformation journey.
According to IDC, enterprises around the world are making significant investments in digital transformation to innovate their business models, products and services. In IDC’s report released this April, the research firm forecasts global digital transformation spending to reach nearly US$1.2 trillion this year, and will reach to more than US$6 trillion over the next four years.
In the same report, IDC also stated that the businesses which have invested heavily in digital transformation over the last three years are already reaping the rewards in terms of faster revenue growth and stronger net profits.
Innovation is a critical element in digital transformation. It is not only applied in products or services but also in the way internal processes are executed in an organization. Nowadays, the pace of innovation in businesses is accelerating in many corporate functions, business units and so must the finance function.
Finance leaders and their teams must move from being a traditional to a progressive function. They can play a more active role in helping an organization to see the value in innovation, enabling the organization to continue to thrive. They can help automate business processes, identify opportunities to reduce cost, explore new markets and new sources of revenue. This requires investment in new technologies, skills and practices.
To enable innovation in the finance function, financial accounting software or financial management system cannot be simply used for managing financial and accounting processes day by day. They have to be integrated with more new technologies such as data analytics and automation. In this way, finance leaders will be empowered to deliver better insights about their business and produce more accurate financial forecasts for the board to make smarter, faster and data-driven business decisions and strategies.
FlexSystem strives to leverage emerging technologies into its wide array of applications, ensuring that the applications implemented today will keep pace with tomorrow’s technology innovations.
Innovation is an enterprise-wide initiative. Finance leaders cannot do it on their own. It is vital that innovation gets sponsorship from the top and accountability in every business unit across an organization.
