Finance departments lack the technological tools for meaningful business analysis and reporting
In a September 2015 survey, which was released today by SAP SE, CFO Research interviewed more than 1,500 finance professionals.
It found that "the finance function is gaining more responsibility within organizations as the pace of business becomes faster and more volatile due to the shifting global economy, new financial regulations, changing government policy, and greater customer demand."
The group says meeting an accelerated pace of change requires better reporting tools that can drive in-depth financial analysis that will move the business forward.
"Finance professionals are poised to make a huge impact on their organizations in the near future, contributing to high-value activities that underlie performance management to ensure that financial targets are met," said Thack Brown, general manager and global head of Line-of-Business Finance at SAP.
"But smart finance departments recognize that the volume of data, including unique data, will only continue to grow, and advanced technologies are needed to wade through it and derive useful insights," he added.
Among the top concern of finance experts is finding technology that can "enable end-to-end finance process coverage in real time, steering enterprises toward success instead of being left behind."
Finance professionals believe an increasing number of departments will fall to finance's control in the near future: IT (35%), risk management (30%), HR (29%), and mergers and acquisitions (28%).
The study found that finance employees are most concerned about analysis and the growth of data. Fewer than half of respondents (44%) believe their finance functions are already ready to produce meaningful business analysis and reporting.
Nearly four-fifths (79%) say their companies must "develop or acquire capabilities in advanced analytics to meet the speed of information being introduced by digitization and automation."
As Business Insider previously reported, many finance chiefs believe a centralized system must be implemented in order to find a single source of truth and to remove delays with the help of real-time reporting.
An overwhelming majority (85%) of respondents agree that, over the next five years, "their companies' success will increasingly depend on their ability to adapt to the rapid pace of change and greater business complexity."
Nearly all (84%) say their company must be able to translate the flow of data into swift and decisive action with the help of software that can enable real-time financial reporting for instant insight, and prediction and simulation tools to pick up quickly on trends or deviations.
"The results of this survey are consistent with the discussions we are having with our CFO clients," said John Steele, principal of Deloitte Consulting LLP and co-leader of the global SAP Finance Transformation practice.
"It is a critical moment, where the role of finance is experiencing a rapid evolution and the value of the finance function is being rediscovered," he said.