A recent study underscores a new reality for many finance chiefs today: Their jobs are changing.
CFOs are increasingly focusing on strategic efforts beyond managing day-to-day financials, which is propelled partly by automation that has helped their lean finance teams accomplish more with fewer resources and greater autonomy.
This efficiency has allowed CFOs to dedicate more of the time traditionally spent on reviewing financials to growth strategy and business counsel. That's why CFO sentiment for automation is growing daily. However, realizing the benefits of finance automation requires a comprehensive understanding of the processes it enhances. For this reason, the rising interest in finance automation presents a compelling growth opportunity for controllers to establish themselves as de facto ‘finance CIOs’.
Automation Starts With Process Knowledge
Chief information officers (CIOs) are generally responsible for planning and executing IT strategies to support business objectives. Controllers operating as ‘finance CIOs’ amid the ongoing CFO role understand earned efficiency sounds great on paper, but realize it is impossible without thorough process knowledge.
Without thorough comprehension of the complexities within your process, you may end up with band-aid solutions and may handicap your team. What’s more, you could wind up with poor buy-in and adoption, further reducing the return on investment.
As such, controllers should take the following pages from successful CIOs when applying new technologies to enhance finance processes and the business at large.
1. The CFO-Controller Conversation
When meeting with your CFO, dedicate time to understanding the extent of their responsibilities and how they envision the finance function evolving in six to 18 months. Identify the areas your CFO is most concerned about and map out how your team’s current processes can be optimized to support those areas.
Getting buy-in from the CFO is critical for securing the top-down and cross-department communication and support needed to prioritize your efforts, and for positioning them as a company-wide issue instead of a siloed finance matter.
Two easy-win starting points are month-end close and accounts payable. They directly impact the productivity, success, and stress levels of the finance team, which often runs lean at small- and middle-market businesses.
As CFOs expand their scope to oversee areas including data analytics and growth strategy, starting a dialogue with your finance chief — and, more importantly, how you can provide value to your finance lead as automation use cases flourish — sets a strong foundation for future transformation success.
2. Finance Technology Priority Roadmap
This next step can vary depending on how long you’ve been with your current organization. For recent joiners, building trust within your organization by delivering quick wins that tap your previous experiences is essential. Your understanding of the business will grow over time with each win.
Controllers with a year or more experience in their organizations should take steps to create a priorities roadmap. Segment automation-driven efficiency opportunities by impact level, the effort required, and relative priority. Once you have a clear view of your low-hanging fruit, this is usually the best place to start to build momentum for larger initiatives.
A typical example is utilizing an automation tool for your expenses or AP, especially if these are paper-based or multi-step processes. In such scenarios, you can test and iterate before fully committing to a complete implementation.
As your team executes these quick-win scenarios, you can simultaneously use the experience and knowledge gained to map out more comprehensive wins in collaboration with your CFO (e.g., order-to-cash automation).
3. Manage Resistance to Change
With process change, you inevitably encounter the trap of status quo from internal stakeholders: “We have always managed this process in a certain way, so why, after all this time, are we changing it?”
To answer this question, let’s first consider the counterargument. The CFO role is evolving, and organizations are increasingly adopting automation in the finance function, but the pace and outlook vary depending on the companies you survey.
Even if you aren’t actively examining how your finance operations can be streamlined, your competitors are. Technology is a critical lever for businesses to remain competitive. Internal tooling is a useful example. Companies pour millions of dollars and countless hours into internal tooling R&D and third-party tool implementations to boost efficiency and do more with less. The same potential exists within finance – don’t limit such gains in scale to IT.
Become a Positive Change Agent
Another question controllers might have is why they should be responsible for driving change. If your goal is to become a CFO one day, operate your own business, or take on a strategic role elsewhere, taking the initiative now to get transformation experience provides early reps for work you’ll be expected to lead one day.
If your organization is not moving quickly, can you be the one to push it in the right direction? If you can identify quick wins and longer-term projects that will help your CFO focus their attention on up-leveled responsibilities that they are increasingly being tasked with — and help your organization compete — you are well on your way to solidifying the skill sets that will be at a premium over the next five to ten years.
Finally, your ability to build cross-functional relationships is critical to your success as a corporate controller. Having top-down support from other departmental leads will empower controllers to overcome resistance to change and drive transformation that not only improves the finance function but delivers positive change for other departments. By taking this leap as a finance CIO, you will build trust with your CFO and gain valuable experience that will serve you well in your future leadership role.
Bryce Armbruster is a controller at the automated finance platform Rho.