In today’s volatile, fast-changing economy, having information systems that offer insightful and actionable analytics is no longer a choice. Still, it is vital to surviving and thriving over the long term.
FREMONT, CA: Organizations are either drowning in massive data, constrained in accessing their data, or limited by the technology they are leveraging to analyze the data. The digital transformation of finance has been present for the past few years. The potential to automate manual tasks and processes leveraging digital technologies has assisted finance is shifting its focus from back-office processing of historic outcomes – to forward-looking forecasting and analysis of the business. Finance teams that have successfully used these troves of data can ask good questions, forecast more accurately, model scenarios, and find actionable insights that drive enhanced decision-making.
The major reason is that most organizations are not extracting the true value and insights from their data. Organizations are either drowning in vast data, constrained in accessing their data or restricted by the technology they are leveraging to analyze the data. The survey found that only 12 percent of organizations consider themselves data masters who actively handle their data as an asset and have the right tools and resources required to create actionable insights and competitive benefit.
While several firms have focused on improving their analytic processes, most of them miss a valuable source of insights. Leveraged correctly, these operations can provide valuable telemetry and signals regarding customer behavior and supplier performance that can unearth key opportunities or risks. To have an entire picture of the business, data from these and other systems and operations should be integrated and aligned with financial data to generate actionable insights and help decisions that can create a competitive advantage.
The explosion of the latest technologies available in the market has several finance organizations struggling to keep pace. This includes cloud-powered ERP and corporate performance management (CPM) solutions, analytics, robotic process automation (RPA), predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and many more. While these technologies might be useful, to succeed, firms need a holistic information systems strategy.
