CFOs – now the Chief Value Officers

Today’s commercial landscape is embedded in a challenging environment of rapidly changing economic and political events. Uncertainty, instability and a turbulent global economy mean organisations face frequent changes from acquisitions, reorganisations and stiffening regulatory requirements. Combine that with volatility in currency, interest rates, markets and consumer buying patterns and it’s easy to understand why organisations need to be more forward thinking, flexible and agile than ever before.

Becoming the value creator

Cost savings and efficiency – the previous realm and remit of the finance function, are no longer the main criteria to business success. In today’s dynamic and competitive commercial landscape, organisations need to react quickly to real time events.

Finance teams are being asked to deliver faster, more accurate and more insightful analysis and reporting. This requires early insight from a combination of traditional data sources such as customer databases and analyst reports, alongside new sources, such as social media accounts, mobile devices and call centre activity.

Data is transforming the way today’s organisations operate. And that’s because cost effective and flexible cloud storage solutions have made it possible to store vast amounts of data from every conceivable channel – from disparate databases, files and web services, to mobile devices, sensors and transactions, and many more. Previously siloed data can now be collated and stored on a single platform, and analysed in real time.

This growth in analytics capability is transforming the finance function from back-room financial reporters who looked at historic data for planning, budgeting and forecasting, to value creators that draw on multiple, relevant sources to provide real-time insights across the value chain.

However, to fulfil the role of value creators, finance teams have to overcome the challenge of extracting meaningful value from an unprecedented quantity of data generated from operations, supply chains, production processes and customer interactions. And that’s where a Performance Management solution can help.

Enabling value creation

A Performance Management solution leverages a broader depth of data than just traditional finance data. It includes built-in calculations and process flows to handle even the most complex requirements, and to provide accurate and timely financial consolidation, reporting and forecasting capability.

Whilst in the past the cost of on- premise data platforms have made Performance Management solutions cost prohibitive for many organisations, the cloud has removed the time, effort and expense of hosting physical hardware and software. The speed involved in implementing a cloud-based Performance Management solution means reports can be produced and benefits realised in a matter of weeks, as opposed to months.

Altius works with organisations to implement OneStream to support faster close and reporting processes by enabling automation of eliminations and aggregations, supporting intercompany mis-match resolution within system, and automating Management & Statutory reporting packs. Altius has also improved budgeting and forecasting cycles for its clients, by building sophisticated driver based models for order book, capex and cash flow forecasting.

Conclusions

Today’s finance leaders need to discover ways to transform their finance function to one that delivers higher-value business decision support activities. By taking the lead and applying analytics to operational decisions, CFOs can strengthen ties throughout the business, expand influence outside of core finance functions, and exercise more centralised control over operational business decision-making.

Join our webinar to learn more about Altius’s Performance Management capabilities and how Altius are implementing OneStream for VolkerWessels UK. Visit the following url for further information: https://www.altius.co.uk/webinar/

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