What Exactly Is Financial Digital Transformation?
“Technology is rapidly reshaping the financial services workforce. Digital tools can do more of the ‘heavy lifting,’ freeing up staff to concentrate on more complex and value-added functions.” – PWC
The world is being swept up by speed with same-day deliveries, streaming and online banking. Today, people don’t just expect things quickly, they expect them instantly. Over the past few years, digital transformation has introduced expediency to the world of corporate finance. APIs and open banking are delivering same-day transaction data, AI and machine learning technology can make calculations at the drop of a hat and RPA is making quick work of repetitive data entry.
At the beginning of this year, digital transformation was seeing sparks of interest from businesses looking to gain real-time cash insights. But in March, COVID-19 poured kerosene on the flames.
In fact, according to Forbes, “Twilio recently surveyed 2,569 enterprise decision-makers about digital transformation, and clearly, Covid-19 was the burning platform that finally made laggards take the plunge. The result: a six-year acceleration in digital transformation efforts across the board.”
The Importance of a Strong Digital Framework
“Not having a roadmap would be really dangerous these days because the pace of transformation is speeding up in every industry.” – Deloitte
Rushing into the digital redesign of the finance department without a proper plan, is a recipe for disaster. By taking the time to develop a digital strategy, business leaders can be certain that they are investing in the right technology for their organization, while striking a balance between budget and operational efficiency. Leading digital transformation can seem overwhelming, it can be broken into three simple steps.
- Outline Your Needs as a Business
“The key first steps are to improve visibility into the sources and uses of cash, put cash at the heart of operational and strategic decisions, and take steps to unlock cash from working capital.” – KPMG
As COVID related shutdowns and changes in consumer behavior continue to impact businesses, it has become increasingly important that CFOs be able to make quick and confident decisions.
Begin your journey towards digital transformation by outlining the financial needs of your organization. Finding a solution that offers cash forecasting powered by proprietary machine learning algorithms can enable you to increase the accuracy and efficiency of your forecasting process.
Solutions that offer API integration will provide you with real-time cash data and allow you to make decisions based on your true cash position.
Do you have the resources to store and maintain large amounts of data? If not, you will need to find a cloud-based solution that can manage your data for you.
Involve your team. Ask them what tools they could use to provide better, or faster insights.
- Reinvent Old Processes
“The ability to digitally reimagine the business is determined in large part by a clear digital strategy supported by leaders who foster a culture able to change and invent the new.” – Deloitte
It is time to let go of the manual reporting processes that have held back your department for so long. The process of collecting cash data from a seemingly endless list of bank portals, normalizing it, then analyzing the data through several models and BI tools takes far too long.
CFOs can no longer afford to waste time waiting for cash data to be aggregated and assembled into relevant cash insights. You need the ability to generate custom cash forecasts and reports on demand.
- Take Advantage of the Latest Digital Tools
“Artificial intelligence too shows promise among CFOs: 20 percent expect to adopt it within five years. Other enticing innovations include distributed ledger technology, machine learning, robotic process automation, and optical character recognition.” –AccountingToday
AI and machine learning tools are providing CFOs with full visibility over their cash position, as well as apply resources to include scenario based planning in their cash management process. The competitive advantage offered by automation has left organizations with a choice: embrace the digital transformation or risk being out maneuvered by competitors.
If you are still a little overwhelmed by all the new digital tools available to business professionals, we can guide you through it. Check out our “Strategic CFO’s Guide to Digital Transformation”, which breaks down the latest technological advancements in more detail.
Lead a Successful Digital Transformation with Trovata
“Trovata has saved me multiple times when I just need a quick view of my cash trends. I simply used my phone to login. It was so easy.” -Aurelia Sirbu, CFO at Orbus
Trovata is directly integrated with banks that allows its users to connect to banks in minutes and stay connected with secure access tokens via modern open banking APIs. With Trovata cash positioning is fully automated and includes built-in business intelligence tools to help CFOs visualize, analyze, report, and reconcile cash flows. Unlike other providers in the space, Trovata.io can be installed in a minimum of a few hours. Contrary to legacy TMS, Trovata.io offers affordable set-up and maintenance fees.
Our new Enterprise Platform offering, securely stores and manages all of your bank data fully transformed in the cloud where your business systems’ team can access many of the same APIs that power our application directly with entitlements through our robust developer portal.
Want to learn more about how Trovata is helping CFOs automate their cash management? Click here for a guide on how CFOs can lead digital transformation.
