Many CFOs today believe that the level of technology currently in existence in their finance function and payroll departments is not sufficient enough to meet the many and varied challenges coming in the next five years.
Ensuring that their own finance department and a range of other business critical functions have the right level of technology needed to deliver their services is a significant priority among all CFOs today. The current global pandemic has served to shine a brighter light on some of the inadequacies of legacy technology across crucial business functions.
The result of this is a renewed sense of urgency and commitment to digital transformation and ensuring that core business functions have the right blend of technology and people to meet current and future demands.
Robotic process automation is one of the key technologies that several CFOs and busines leaders are paying greater attention to. The productivity gains and general efficiencies associated with the removal of manual processes are just too important to ignore. In this article, we will ask if the future of finance and global payroll is robotic and if so, what are the implications?
Why robotic process automation?
Simply put, the use of robotics or RPA falls perfectly in line with the CFO vision for introducing technology that creates more efficient processes and delivers essential business services in a faster, smarter and better way. Robotic process automation meets these criteria perfectly while also eliminating the likelihood of human error.
Another reason is that robotics can be applied to a range of business-critical functions -from finance, human resources to global payroll all the way to sales, marketing and procurement. Essentially, anywhere there is a repeatable and recurring process that currently relies on manual data entry -robotics can be introduced to take over these repetitive tasks and deliver the previous results in a much quicker, more efficient and secure manner.
In general, there is not a huge amount of resistance to robotics from CFOs, it is really more a case of getting the blend right, as chief financial officers and finance teams look to achieve the right balance between people, process and technology.
CFOs responding to demands
Businesses have grown a lot in the last 20 years, and many are changing and expanding at extremely rapid rates. This results in high volume data, a lot more employees to be paid and managed, plus a range of new processes in place at multinational organizations, to manage all of this data and all of these people.
Robotics is needed as a response to these the new demands- a technology capable of delivering high volume data related work in bulk, in a fast, automated fashion with limited need for individual input. This is a simple case of using technology to do the heavy lifting, enabling key members of the workforce, such as those in global payroll, to focus their key skill sets on high value work. Technology and machine learning will play a larger role in executing many of the traditional finance, HR and global payroll tasks that were previously manual based.
Robotics is also a response to anticipated future demands, especially if it is a case, in the opinion of the CFO at least, that current functions do not have the technology or processes in place of o meet the future strategic objectives of the organization. Robotics enable CFOs and other members of the finance department to put in place a process that responds to urgent demands in the here and now while also facilitating future growth.
RPA is an opportunity for change
All good CFOs will be interested in creating a financial services legacy at the company they work for- robotics represent an opportunity for change, a chance to implement a vision of what the finance, HR and global payroll departments could look like when digital technologies become the main driver of process in these business-critical departments. This is about digital technologies and the future of finance, leveraging new technologies for better financial planning and financial performance.
This is about introducing change via technology innovation and then examining how this technology can be applied to multiple business processes across the broader organization. Robotics is an opportunity for a CFO to test them in a selection of business-critical functions and then see if these results could be applied elsewhere. If robotics take hold across the wider organization where productivity gains and greater process efficiencies are the net result, then the CFO can be viewed as the visionary person who proved to be a leader in the wider digital transformation of the entire organization.
Every CFO will be a person of ambition who is looking to make their mark and enhance their reputation as innovative or even visionary. Robotics represent an opportunity for CFOs everywhere to solidify their personal goals and align them with the wider strategic objectives of the multinational.
Risk management
Robotic process automation, by its nature, immediately helps to reduce risk. A previously manual heavy process gets replaced by a machine-driven process where human interaction is limited. This immediately eliminates the likelihood of human error and significantly de-risks the process. Any CFO will be a risk averse individual by nature and so will be pleased to learn that robotics helps them to manage risk across business-critical functions in their organization.
Robotics can also keep a clean and transparent audit trail which also serves to help with risk while improving compliance. When machines are driving finance processes in real-time, they leave behind metrics and an activity trail that clearly outlines what took place, when it happened and for what reason. This kind of audit trail transparency is not nearly as achievable when organizations are relying on individuals and manual heavy processes.
Cost down, growth up
Driving cost efficiencies within the finance function and other related business departments will always be a priority of any CFO. But the landscape has changed in recent years and CFOs now find themselves with increased responsibility that involves driving costs down while ensuring growth continues to rise.
This is quite a tricky balancing act because usually some form of investment is needed for growth to rise and this is something that only drives costs upwards. One of the key reasons why robotic process automation is the future is that it enables a CFO to introduce a process that post an initial investment, requires little in thew way of overhead or ongoing workflow costs.
Robotics can help to drive growth by introducing greater speed and efficiency to internal processes while also ensuring that costs are manageable and remain within predefined control protocols.
The future of finance is now
The benefits and long-term business case for robotics is clear -many organizations have already acted and implemented robotic process of automation to both their finance and global payroll functions.
CFOs are no longer in a position to wait -they are mandated by the board to introduce strategies that will help companies grow and expand while driving down costs. This is no longer about planning for the future -it is more of a case that the future has simply arrived and now is the time to act.
Robotics can be introduced to core finance, HR and global payroll functions relatively quickly and the gains in terms of stronger audit trails, faster processing, better reporting and analytics as well as a much more robust compliance environment can be realized within a relatively short space of time.
Robotics represent an opportunity to build a smarter, faster and more resilient finance function-one that can become the standard bearer for other departments within the organization. Finance executives and staff working within the CFO department will find themselves with additional time to focus on high priority activities and many of the more transactional finance, HR and global payroll processes will be executed in a much faster way. This is what an operating model within the finance function at a multinational organization can look like - but it does not have to be in the future, it can become a reality in the here and now.