There is nothing wrong in denying the facts that the finance function plays an important role in every aspect of doing a business. Ensuring strong financial health, tracking revenue, and managing budgets will take place behind the scenes, which all are the key ingredients, ultimately, determining whether a business is successful or not. We have to thank the ongoing pandemic and resulting economic flux, every business has face financial challenges in these last months and the with the revenues continuing to alter, budgets got tighter than ever and in these times profitability is essential.
Carlo Lee, the CEO of Wrike shares some insights with us regarding the same topic. He believes, “The modern finance team needs to be about far more than month-end and retrospective quarterly reporting. The pandemic has highlighted how important this statement is, with sudden shifts in consumer demand for certain products and services driving drastic changes in revenue for many businesses. For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, many supermarkets will have seen their revenues increase, whilst restaurants and gyms witnessed significant dips following necessary closures. In order to survive this time of turmoil, finance teams need to be able to quickly and efficiently adapt to these changes in customer behavior. Planning projects that are expected to yield profit is no longer enough. Finance teams need to ensure that these projects maintain profitability throughout their lifecycle, controlling financials from the planning phase through client delivery. As such, tracking budget spend in real-time in order to keep margins positive and meet customer expectations is key. Visibility needs to be front of mind, especially in our new remote working landscape, where face-to-face communications has had to take a backseat. The right performance metrics, delivered on time, can enable finance teams to track and obtain a deeper understanding of how projects and finance strategies are progressing and delivering against set objectives. They can help to determine stress points in the business and articulate events and triggers for certain financial actions to be taken.”
All of these used along the right modern technologies, they can help to save projects that are not delivering the potential problems and can recommend the fixes required. This is where modern technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can help. Using real time insights, finance teams can ensure the entire org is on track. By identifying signals and patterns based on the factors including past campaign results, work progress, organization history and work complexity , they can provide an extremely timely diagnosis and help minimize the risk throughout the entire organization. Once the team knows the potential risks, they can attend them specifically by managing and mitigating it. By assessing a project’s Risk Tolerance this can be achieved. Helping finance professionals to decide on the most effective response to ensure the correct usage of resources in an essential step now.
He concluded saying “As organisations across every sector fight to get back on their feet post-pandemic, ensuring long-term profitability will be a key focus. Many businesses will turn to their finance teams to lead the charge and provide the solutions and recommendations which will ensure future economic survival. As such, having a plan in place to make sure that all projects stay on track and that any potential risks to the business are mitigated before they cause a problem needs to be a priority. By investing in modern technologies – such as AI and ML – today, finance teams are setting themselves up for success tomorrow, no matter what is around the corner.”
