Finance transformation

Why finance functions are transforming

Increasingly, businesses are being called on to adapt and respond with greater agility and speed to shifting economic environments, complex stakeholder expectations and intensifying compliance requirements. At the same time, sustainability and ESG have developed into market imperatives and the decisions made by organisations, investors and leadership teams now represent a significant lever to drive change, elevate value and create impact.

The changing role of the CFO

Successful finance leaders are starting to rethink their approach to the component parts of their function. The demands on finance teams to create and sustain value are greater than ever. However, adverse events can reveal whether finance functions are reactive or proactive in responding to market changes.

In today's fast-paced and dynamic business landscape, finance leaders must harness the power of data, analytics and automation to provide business executives with accurate and reliable information.

Enterprise leaders increasingly rely on finance teams to leverage information to help them enhance governance models, mitigate risks, strengthen internal controls and access data visualisation.

Finance transformation services (FTS) and the importance of quality financial data

Financial data is only useful if it is high quality (i.e. relevant, accurate and complete) and readily available. Only then can executives reliably gain a deeper understanding and be comfortable making informed strategic decisions which, in turn, increase the probability of implementing a successful strategy and improving operational performance.

In addition, finance teams that combine data and risk management modelling create game-changing business opportunities.

Improving and maintaining internal controls that link to business activities provides executives with the reassurance that they are being presented with a single source of truth and can make decisions with confidence to position their business for long-term success.

Leading with data

Modelling various strategic scenarios and identifying risks and opportunities can help businesses make more intelligent decisions.

To achieve this, organisations must transform their finance operations by:

Scaling up their data usage
Improving internal controls
Creating alignment in their processes
Managing systems and applications across multiple areas, such as supply chain, sales, marketing and procurement.

By leveraging data effectively and understanding the risks associated with each project, finance teams become growth and innovation enablers that can drive value and support business leaders in making better financial decisions.

How BDO will help you transform your finance function

Change is never siloed. It will impact an organisation in multiple ways, often unintentionally. We help finance functions to transform by optimising the relationship between people, processes and technology (PPT). This provides a framework to help businesses achieve organisational efficiency.

BDO’s finance transformation offerings are built on deep experience. You will benefit from this as you work to assess opportunities, address underperformance or launch strategic transformations. Our professionals include former C-suite executives who will work with you to provide strategic, advisory, operational, programme and interim management support, as well as systems and organisational design services.  

Our service offering includes:

Finance function reviews and strategic planning

We help pinpoint issues hampering the finance department’s performance and then strategically assist with the development of long-term strategic plans and initiatives to position the company to implement the strategy for sustainable growth. We focus on:

Establishing baselines through finance function diagnostics
Finance function efficiency reviews (across people, processes and technology)
Finance team capability assessments and recommending improvements
Integrated planning for project execution through the creation of a strategic road map.

Operating model and organisational design

We employ known and scalable techniques to help you reimagine your business, focusing on:

Analysing and then designing an optimum financial management operating model
Re-organising core and support functions
Designing a process delivery model
Providing span of control and layer analysis.

Implementation of improvements

We provide analysis and improvement of end-to-end value chains for business activities to reduce costs and cycle times while increasing service levels or quality. This involves:

Identifying strategic interim projects
Optimising end-to-end business processes
Designing finance staff training needs
Re-designing finance departments
Identifying systems.

Project management

We support you with the establishment of a lean project management office (PMO) that focuses on coordinating and executing projects consistently and efficiently. This includes:

Developing a project plan, resource needs, success metrics and communications
Setting up governance structures
Overseeing project execution
Managing change, including new system adoption.