Digitizing the finance function has always been a priority for CFOs, but COVID-19 has accelerated that mandate.
CEOs and boards are looking to finance to provide real-time financial information and data-driven insights to guide organizations in today’s uncertain times.
Global forces are also expanding and shifting the finance team’s role — from transactional, back-office support to a strategic partner to the business. In this role, finance is being asked to do more with less. The automation of manual, time-consuming processes, coupled with the use of data analytics, can help you and your team meet these increased responsibilities.
Data analytics and process automation can help you and your colleagues bring greater value to the organization through:
If your organization is ready to start its data analytics journey, consider these recommendations:
1. Figure out what you’re trying to solve Identify the problem. Pinpoint one or two challenges that your company is trying to solve. This will help you zero in on collecting the right data. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you might end up with an extraordinary amount of useless data and no real insights.
2. Start small Don’t botch your first shot at data analytics by going too big. It’s easy to make an error that will cost the trust of your leadership. Go slowly and prove your successes one data analytics project at a time.
3. Tell the story Collecting the right data to draw insights is just one part of the process. You also need to be able to present the data and your insights in a format that’s easy for non-finance people to understand. Leverage data visualization tools to help you tell your story to your CEO, board and business partners.
How one Major League Baseball team is winning with data analytics
