New Expectations Driving A Renewed Industry
Over the past few decades, technology has helped businesses to thrive, new economies to emerge and the lives of millions of people to improve across the globe. thanks to the technology proliferation, agility has become a key determinant.
The recent past has impacted economies across industries in India and changed the way businesses operated almost overnight. The lockdown, remote working and social distancing norms have made companies take a fresh look at adopting technology and digital solutions to ensure business continuity. According to Gartner, even in these challenging times, 70 per cent of organisations report that they intend to leverage technology more effectively than ever. Many businesses are on their digital transformation journey to automate processes and create resources to help employees keep up with business operations remotely.
However, digital transformation and the change management that comes along with it will redefine how functions such as finance, technology and HR operate in the future. Functional leaders will need to reset what the future looks like to enable their businesses to recover and thrive. This will involve redefining the role of finance, technology and how HR leaders transform and reimagine the workplace.
Redefining Finance
Chief financial officers are leading financial transformation and finance will drive the change and redefine itself. Finance's primary role will be in supporting business model transformation, merger and acquisitions, automating the entire financial planning & analysis process and other major capital investment decisions. On the front end, finance will be a strategic partner, modelling changes and helping find the optimal scenario. On the backend, it will be specialised in rapid execution and reporting methodologies to ensure execution of the business plan. This need for proactiveness becomes more pronounced with the constant disruption that we have seen in the market. Business partnering will shift upstream from budgeting and reporting to include scenario planning, advanced forecasting, and better visualisation. To drive the change, it will become critical to re-skill finance teams so that they focus on strategic decision making that drives revenue creation or cost optimisation.
Revitalise Technology
As technology leaders shape the new normal, it's more important than ever to look for ways to create leaner and efficient operations, while getting more control over costs so that businesses can effectively adapt, re-establish momentum, and keep moving forward. Digital transformation should not only make processes easier, but also create savings that lead to new revenue. Businesses should consider solutions that use AI and machine learning to eliminate data entry activities, manage cash flow strategies, and track costs. Additionally, mastering data and analytics, both predictive and cognitive, will be critical since decision making now needs to be available in near real time leading to a prevalence of self-service models. Digital transformation is is a way to refine and build on existing processes, and ultimately simplify workflows and customer touchpoints.
Reimagining HR
The year 2020 and the evolution of a remote workforce have tested businesses' durability and flexibility. Chief human resources officers are playing a pivotal role in safeguarding the health and safety of employees and supporting their transition to remote working, actioning business continuity plans and preparing strategies for a safe return to work for everyone. According to a Forrester and SAP Concur study, 68 per cent firms believe employee experience to be an important factor impacting the business objectives. Now, employee experience is inextricably linked to technology and better employee experience equals better business results. Gallup's report on the State of the Global Workplace shows that companies that create exceptional experiences see results such as 17 per cent higher productivity.
With more employees accessing work apps on the road, at home or at the coffee shop, they need technology to be productive wherever they are. Mobile has a particularly significant role to play here. Technologies that have eliminated physical processing of documents are becoming critical now. They have lessened the workload on finance teams as well and enabled control and visibility into spend to continue, which is critical for maintaining cashflow. Digital technologies will help reduce the burden of monotonous tasks on employees. Digital transformation requires reskilling. Businesses must invest in building employees' digital skills that will enable them to better meet business needs, stay relevant and serve as ambassadors of change.
Digital transformation, when done correctly, will allow businesses to snap to ever evolving customer expectations, stay ahead of the competition, and potentially even assume a leadership role in a challenging business environment.
