Survey casts spotlight on digital finance transformation

Workday has published the European results of its latest survey of senior finance and IT leaders. The research examines the state of digital finance transformation in EMEA, how these efforts are impacted by finance and IT, and how CFO-CIO alignment is central to transformation success.

Posted in Digital Business

The global survey that included 480 senior finance and IT leaders in EMEA revealed the following findings:

· Digital finance is business critical. Only 4% of EMEA organisations have a robust digital finance transformation strategy and implemented many digital transformation initiatives in the last two years 16% of businesses in the region have not even developed a finance transformation strategy. This puts the region behind North America, where only 10% have not developed a strategy.

· CFO-CIO alignment must be a top priority. The research finds a positive correlation between the level of finance-IT alignment and the maturity of an organisation’s finance transformation. However, EMEA organisations are not making the most of this opportunity. In 89% of EMEA businesses, finance and IT are not always aligned or collaborating regularly, compared with 87% of those in North America and 85% of those in Asia-Pacific Japan (APJ).

· Digital transformation objectives. To exploit the digital finance opportunity, EMEA finance and IT leaders must partner around three core areas of transformation:

o Insights: Exploiting financial and non-financial data to improve finance decisions. 55% of EMEA finance leaders say that limited and/or outdated information hampers their teams’ ability to forecast accurately.

o Agility and speed: Harnessing finance technology to deliver better organisational alignment and outcomes. 52% of EMEA finance heads say they continue to make gut-instinct decisions where finance is concerned, because the data they need is siloed, not in the right format, or not readily available in a timely manner.

o Talent: Equipping employees and teams with tools and skills to collaborate and innovate. Currently, less than 50% of EMEA finance and IT leaders are confident they have the skills they need to keep pace with new and emerging finance technologies.

“In a world of constant change, it’s more critical than ever that CFOs and CIOs align to drive digital transformation,” said Frederic Portal, product marketing director EMEA financials, Workday. “Building a digital finance function that improves better decision making for planning and reporting, including broader requirements around ESG, will provide the data and insights needed for organisations to best keep pace in today’s business environment.”

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