Lumenia Guest Post from Hazel Nash, Microsoft Sales Director at Delaware UK & Ireland
Digital transformation has been a hot topic for several years, as businesses across the globe continue to evaluate their processes and search for innovative solutions that will drive efficiencies and help them stay competitive.
Many businesses now rely on technology across their manufacturing and distribution processes, and this year, we can expect the tech revolution to shake things up for finance departments, too.
Finance professionals have for a long time relied heavily on manual data, processes, and workflows, spending vast amounts of time crunching numbers, analysing trends, and making predictions.
But the time for change is now.
Here are my top tech predictions for how technology will transform finance operations throughout 2024 and beyond:
Single source of truth
At the heart of every finance team is data, but many struggle with duplicate data entries listed across several disparate solutions.
Data re-entry not only wastes valuable time, but increases the risk of errors, inconsistencies, and unreliable results.
To avoid such errors and increase data reliability, finance functions will be looking at solutions that will collate all data across all systems, presenting one single source of truth with real-time visibility.
With a single source of truth, finance teams will be empowered to make smarter and more meaningful decisions when it matters most.
Automation
Automated processes have been on the rise for quite some time.
And this year, we can expect to see businesses exploring automation further across their supply chains, with finance functions being high on the priority list.
Automation can be leveraged across the entire finance function from invoicing and accounts receivable through to payroll, expenses, and tax compliance – freeing up the finance team so they can concentrate on more important tasks.
Generative AI
One way of automating processes that will certainly garner significant investment this year is Generative AI (GenAI).
GenAI will be a game-changer for the modern finance function, automating data-related chores, delivering rapid data analysis, and summarising lengthy documents and policies.
This will not only revolutionise finance operations by saving them valuable time, but will help reduce costs, improve accuracy, improve employee recruitment and retention, and enhance security. A recent blog from Delaware delves further into these benefits of GenAI across finance teams, which you can read here.
Furthermore, Microsoft Copilot is a great example of technology that can help achieve this, as it enables finance functions to increase successful collection rates and proactively keep customers in good standing, increase more timely payments to enable better cash flows, and identify bottlenecks and suggested areas for improvement.
A new era for CFOs
With technology being embraced across the board, it’s inevitable that the role of finance professionals – in particular, CFOs – will flex and change.
However, that’s not necessarily cause for concern.
In fact, by leveraging GenAI technology, automating manual tasks, and harnessing a single source of truth, the role of a CFO will be elevated to one less focused on traditional number crunching, and more oriented around strategic manoeuvres and critical decision-making.
To learn more about the changing role of a CFO, you can check out Delaware’s latest eBook here.
To discover how technology from Microsoft can help revolutionise your finance and procurement operations, I invite you to join John Robinson and Andy Blatch at Lumenia’s upcoming ERP HEADtoHEAD event, taking place from 13th-14th March. We’ll be offering the following sessions:
- Microsoft Dynamics Finance, Wednesday 13th March, 12:20 – 13:05
- Microsoft Dynamics Procurement, Thursday 14th March, 11:30 – 12:15
You can also find us at stands 14-15 over the two-day event.
Delaware is a global consultancy that partners with leading technology providers, with a mission to help our clients reach their full potential. We develop, innovate, and implement technology transformations, guiding our clients towards an intelligent future. We take care of the tech, so you can get back to business.
