The Finance Leader Podcast
The Finance Leader Podcast
Unlocking Finance Agility and Digital Transformation in Today's Unpredictable Business Environment
Episode 114: Does your organization have the ability to overcome a crisis or overcome rapidly changing business and economic conditions? Is decision making lagging due to financial systems that cannot adapt or because of legacy processes that don’t support change? Being agile means, you can quickly assess and adapt to rapidly changing conditions. Sometimes this lies in processes, but often it can be with leaders who are not able to see change indicators which also means that you may not be measuring for changing conditions.
Episode outline:
- How finance agility and digital transformation gives you more flexibility in a turbulent environment,
- Finance and digital transformation are keys to being more agile, and
- What are your next steps?
Please connect with me on:
1. Instagram: stephen.mclain
2. Twitter: smclainiii
3. Facebook: stephenmclainconsultant
4. LinkedIn: stephenjmclainiii
For more resources, please visit Finance Leader Academy: financeleaderacademy.com.
- On the website, you can download the Become a Finance Leader Guide. You can use this guide to build your Finance Leadership skills so you can help senior leaders develop and execute the strategy.
- I also offer a course, Advance Your Finance and Accounting Career: Developing a Promotion Strategy that Sets You Apart.
Does your organization have the ability to overcome a crisis or overcome rapidly changing business and economic conditions? Is decision making lagging due to financial systems that cannot adapt or because of legacy processes that don't support change? Changing agile means you can quickly assess and adapt to rapidly changing conditions. Sometimes this lies in processes, but often it can be with leaders who are not able to see change indicators, which also means that you may not be measuring for changing conditions. How is your organization assessing risk and what can it do to make quicker and better decisions based on changing conditions? Also, is your organization moving in the direction of finance and digital transformation? Please enjoy the episode.
Stephen McLain:Welcome to the Finance Leader Podcast, where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host, Stephen McLain. This is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. Please consider following me on Twitter, facebook, instagram and LinkedIn. My usernames and the links are in this episode's show notes.
Stephen McLain:This is episode number 114, and I will be talking about why your organization should practice more finance agility and adopt digital transformation, and I will highlight the following topics how finance agility and digital transformation gives you more flexibility in a turbulent environment. Number two finance and digital transformation are keys to being more agile. And three, what are your next steps? Pierre Ninteramy, former CEO of Accenture, said Success is no longer about changing strategies more often, but having the agility to execute multiple strategies concurrently. And success requires CEOs to develop the right leadership capabilities, workforce skills and corporate cultures to support digital transformation.
Stephen McLain:What does your organization do when changes start to occur rapidly? This change can come from a variety of sources the market, the political environment, new technology, an internal crisis and many other ways. First, can you even recognize change when it is happening and, second, who will lead this change? What systems or processes do you have to have in place to recognize and address change? Also, by the way, did you miss episode number 113, embrace Intense Accountability. We all need a boost on being more accountable to ourselves for our goal setting and accomplishment. If you missed this episode, please go back and listen. I know it can be a tremendous help for you. It has been a great reminder for me too. Now we need CFOs and other senior leaders to drive change.
Stephen McLain:Agility often rests with the level of leadership that is in place. Do you have leaders who are open to change and who are looking for change? Does your leadership get ahead of potential problems. We are talking about finance, agility and also digital transformation this week. In this environment, organizations need to be more agile, meaning they have to be watching for and be more ready to adapt to change. This requires new thinking, more open-mindedness, leaders who are not stuck in the same processes in the same systems. We need leaders who are asking the right questions. We need leaders at all levels who are looking at metrics in a different way, and we need cross-functional coordination and cooperation to identify the right issues.
Stephen McLain:Does your organization invest and change? I am talking specifically about finance and digital transformation. Are you investing in system upgrades that can help collect and process the right data, which then helps to make better decisions, but also makes a available key information to decision makers faster and more real-time? Are you running more AI-driven forecasts, taking into consideration more factors than before, which would include market and economic factors? Digital transformation is when you add technology to every aspect of your business, from inventory management to customer relations, to accounts, payable and receivables, and even your POS system, transportation and shipping systems and anything and everything that affects your business. These systems need to be interconnected and are able to collect, store, manage and calculate relevant data that help you make better decisions.
Stephen McLain:Digital transformation is key for any size of business. Small businesses especially must dedicate resources and leadership to assess the digital transformation processes and how agile they are. There is too much risk and uncertainty in the market and economy to remain the same. What can you do to review and update your processes and infrastructure as a small business owner to stay ready and relevant? Digital transformation will often lead to more value creation. I believe that agility and digital transformation go together. Please assess risk in your current setup. Being more agile has proven to be the right focus to sustain growth and to be ready for changes that could come from anywhere. This could be a new competitor entering your market with a different strategy or a supply chain problem. Maybe it's a change in the economy overall and even a global political scenario that might cut off your market or supply chain source. But when you are more agile in your processes, in your use of technology and also in your leadership approach, then you increase the chance of overcoming any of these challenges.
Stephen McLain:Now let's talk about a critical pitfall. I love getting ahead of problems, but we need to ensure they are the right problems, otherwise you will be chasing issues that may not even exist. We want to go after the right problems, the right issues, and not distractions that waste time and other resources. Be different, but ensure you are solving the right problem and be open to thinking differently to solve that problem. Additionally, to know what the problem is, we need to eliminate department and leadership silos. Leadership communication and information sharing must be across up and down the organization to maximize effectiveness. Staying agile means becoming more flexible and adaptable. How many of your organizations are using legacy systems, which can be very frustrating. When was the last time your company invested in new tech or a new financial planning and analysis system or any new IT system? It can be annoying, so we need to advocate for newer and better tech and new processes always.
Stephen McLain:Now let's talk about why your organization must be more agile. Number one how finance agility and digital transformation gives you more flexibility in a turbulent environment. Being more agile helps leaders to identify the right issues and problems to solve. Agility provides a leadership philosophy of rapidly adjusting people and resources and changing conditions. If you can't adjust quickly, your organization is at risk of losing market share, of losing the best deals in the supply chain, maybe even losing access to natural resources in the manufacturing of your products and all sorts of other issues. The companies that can adjust quickly has the greater chance to win overall. You must create relevant models to test your strategy, your market, the strength of your cash flow and many others, and apply those models with risk in mind. This provides limits on what your organization can do and perform during turbulent periods.
Stephen McLain:Number two finance and digital transformation are keys to being more agile. Digital transformation means we're adding technology to all aspects of the business so that change can be better addressed and therefore a catalyst for change and for more value creation. The data shows that more agile companies survive the tough times and can grow more exponentially coming out of a crisis. If you stay stuck to the past or the easy way, you will remain there and therefore put your entire organization at risk. You need a well-trained team who are ready to be leaders, no matter what their role is. They need training and development, plus mentoring. The more agile teams are quicker to move on from team members who don't fit in. Don't be afraid to move on from a team member who does not grow and does not support where you are going. It's not just a fit and it's okay to move on. Being more agile meaning you can adapt to change means we are going to look for non-routine solutions to new problems and we are not going to fear the risk of being different. Number three what are your next steps? We need leaders at all levels to embrace and adopt agility and digital transformation. If there is no buy-in, especially at the highest levels, then your organization will continue to stay behind as competitors who do adapt. This is a leadership issue, so you can move into the future now.
Stephen McLain:Your organization should be using a robust ERP that provides close to real-time information to senior leaders as much as possible. I have said this before. I would like to see the executive team and other senior leaders to see real-time or near real-time dashboards on their phones and tablets so they are up to date when a decision needs to be made. Your analysts should be partnering and solving extraordinary problems with senior leaders. Your analysts should not be spending time on routine reporting. Automate the routine reports and minimize manual processes. They are error-prone and time-consuming.
Stephen McLain:Develop an artificial intelligence strategy. If you are not doing so already, how are you going to adopt AI into your forecasting and other projection models? Ai can help you refine your strategy and how you execute it. We need better data and we need the right data and we need that data to be stored, recorded and validated properly for quick access. You need to invest in your teams and in your information infrastructure. You also need an IT team who easily partners with your finance and accounting teams so that the system stays ready for change and the future For action.
Stephen McLain:Today, what are you doing to support better finance agility and digital transformation in your organization? If you manage a team of staff accounts or financial analysts, you can still bring agility to your team. You may be stuck with the systems you have, but you can lead change. You can ensure you are automating what you can. You can teach and expect your team members to partner better with senior leaders. You can improve any manual processes you use and you can work on skills development plus include lots of coaching and mentoring. Additionally, you can advocate for change at an organizational level. You can make a huge positive difference, no matter what role you are in. Please check out financeleaderacademycom when you get a chance. We want to help you with your goal planning and career advancement. You can find all the previous episodes of the Finance Leader podcast and the free Finance Leader Guide Become a Finance Leader. Please sign up for my weekly emails so I can share a short suggestion each week. I promise that my emails are short and can be read and easily understood quickly.
Stephen McLain:Today, I talked about the importance of adopting finance agility and digital transformation into your organization, and I highlighted the following points Number one how finance agility gives you more flexibility in a turbulent environment. Number two finance and digital transformation are keys to being more agile. And three, what are your next steps? We need adaptable, flexible and future-oriented finance and accounting leaders in every organization who are ready for change, who are prepared to think about, plan and to implement new technology and updated processes, who are willing to take risk and adopt a digital transformation philosophy to ensure that we are creating more value and delivering better and more usable information to decision makers. I am an advocate for leadership development because it makes a difference when you want to bring out necessary change. Great leaders focus on what is possible instead of we can't do that. I know that this audience believes the same. What can you do to help your organization be more agile and address digital transformation?
Stephen McLain:I hope you enjoyed the Finance Leader podcast. I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership skills, to change your mindset and to clarify your goals so you advance your career. You can find the episode wherever you listen to podcasts. If this episode helped you today, please share and leave a quick review so that others may find the podcast Until next time. You can check out more resources at financeleaderacademycom and sign up for my weekly updates so you don't miss an episode of the podcast. And now go lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you.
