The New Finance Leaders: Navigating Change and Driving Innovation in Modern Business

Undeniably, finance leaders have risen to the challenge of an ever-evolving role that has introduced new mandates and responsibilities in recent years. While often managing a hybrid workforce, they must simultaneously focus on talent retention, recruitment, and leverage new technologies such as AI and Machine Learning to stay relevant in the industry.

Further adding to the complexity of evolving responsibilities and workforce dynamics, financial leaders now face the additional pressure of navigating through a year of high inflation. This means that more than ever before businesses must embrace innovative strategies to reduce costs and attract talent at a time when wages continue to rise.

Over the past three years our annual research has provided fascinating insight into the continuous adaptation of Finance Departments, addressing some of the most significant workplace shifts in history through surveys involving over 1500 financial and accounting decision-makers across the UK, USA, France, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, Belgium, UAE, and Luxembourg.

In this report we have tracked the evolving challenges facing finance teams and their innovation from 2021 to the present including the progress of digital transformation and the evolution of hybrid working.

What we have uncovered over that time is that finance leaders are increasingly critical for business resilience strategy, providing the essential expertise and confidence required to not only manage economic crises but also drive innovation and growth.

For example:

• To mitigate rising costs, our research has shown that 40% of businesses have reduced expenses to minimise the impact of inflation and tighter monetary conditions on the business.
• To attract and retain the top finance talent, flexible working (36%) and remote working (32%) have become the top two measures businesses have introduced.

Without question these new challenges intensify the pressure for finance leaders. It is perhaps for this reason why the implementation of automation is now a top priority, not only to improve the working experience for employees by eliminating mundane and repetitive tasks but to also free up valuable time for finance leaders to achieve their ever-expanding corporate responsibilities.

Our research has revealed that over a third of finance decision makers (34%) spend, on average, more than 20 hours a month on invoice processing: the equivalent of spending almost 3 business days a month on managing invoices.

Given these figures it is no wonder that that automation is now recognised as a key tool for modern finance leaders, helping them to manage and streamline the diverse demands of their role.

The research further reveals that the top three advantages of AP automation for finance leaders are increased productivity (36%); improved data accuracy (35%); and the ability to use people more flexibly (25%).

The expanded scope and responsibilities of finance leaders only confirms the significant transformation of their role. Finance leaders are steadily emerging as a lynchpin within organisations, leveraging automation and become a driving force for positive change.

With the introduction of new technology such as AI and data visualisation to finance teams, our hope is that they embrace a sense of empowerment, taking on the challenges that lie ahead for them in 2023.

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