The Buzz 1: The early development of accounting was closely related to developments in writing, counting, and money.…Accounting records dating back more than 7,000 years have been found in Mesopotamia, and documents from ancient Mesopotamia show lists of expenditures, and goods received and traded…all emerged in the context of controlling goods, stocks and transactions in the temple economy of Mesopotamia.” (en.wikipedia.org) The Buzz 2: “When I talk to other CFOs about process improvement, they often tell me that their top priority is closing the books faster…Poor-quality data can’t be trusted, and it takes a lot of labor to scrub bad data.” (Perry D. Wiggins, CPA) The Buzz 3: Of the 2,300 organizations that answered APQC’s General Accounting Open Standards Benchmarking survey, the bottom 25% said they need 10 or more calendar days to perform the monthly close process. … the top 25% can wrap up a monthly close in just 4.8 days or less—about half the time of the bottom 25%. … at the median are the organizations that need 6.4 calendar days to close out a month’s books.” (www.cfo.com) Since the 13th century, accountants have been “closing the books” to give company owners a status on their business performance. And since this happens at all companies at every period-end, you'd think that by 2021, everyone has a perfect, optimized process. But period-end closing still has a reputation of being a burden – causing headaches and overtime. We’ll ask experts Marc Six, Katharina Reichert and David Dixon to share their insights about closing acceleration and business trends affecting Finance teams each and every period-end on Fast, Faster, Fastest: What's Next for the Close?

Financial Excellence with Game Changers, presented by SAP

Fast, Faster, Fastest: What's Next for the Close?

The Buzz: “FP&A [financial planning and analysis] used to hold all the cards; they had all the data at their fingertips. Nowadays, valuable data resides across the business. It’s a battle to find out who has the best data, much less what this data is. Otherwise, a vacuum will develop that smart executives will fill up with their own data. The CFO has to be on top of information flow at all times.” (Mark Partin, CFO of BlackLine) The recent FP&A Trends 2021 Survey highlights that many FP&A practitioners struggle to create time to work on value added activities. From the most senior to the novice FP&A practitioners, there is still (too) much time spent on non-value-added tasks such as gathering data, excess time providing meaningful insights and having trust in the data. How does FP&A overcome these challenges? Tune in to hear FP&A experts' insights on how easily the available, yet disruptive technologies – such as AI/ML, Integration tools and an xP&A (extended planning and analysis) process – can help bring the FP&A practice to the top of the ladder when it comes to driving organizational-wide decisions. We’ll ask Jeff Hattendorf at Macrospect, Hans Gobin at Plan2Plan Consulting, and Floyd Conrad for their take on Data: The Road to Value Add for FP&A.

Data: The Road to Value Add for FP&A

The Buzz 1: “The subscription economy is not new. In fact, the membership-based business model has been around since the 17th century…Recently, the membership-based business model has been gaining a foothold…Experts believe that the membership-based business model is the revenue model of the future.” (boldbusiness.com) The Buzz 2: “Building long-term relationships with customers is the route to value in the Subscription Economy®. Yet the Quote-to-Cash (QTC) process at most B2B companies—even those with subscription businesses—is optimized for linear transactions, not relationships. This results in complexity and cost to the provider and a poor experience for the subscriber.” (subscribed.com) The ‘new normal’ has challenged businesses worldwide during the COVID pandemic. Instead of focusing on revenue growth, most companies were just trying to find new ways to serve their customers and survive, including pivoting their business model to offer product-related services and subscriptions. Some have developed partnerships to facilitate product delivery and installation during pandemic lockdowns – and plan to expand these services. To facilitate this business expansion, flexibility of how companies bill – and how customers pay – is paramount. Some customers may use multiple payment types for the same transaction, even with the option to pay a residual over time. There may be revenue-sharing with the partners that took on delivery and other services, long-term subscriptions or pay-as-you-go usage-based billing – and a developing trend of outcome-based billing. We’ll ask Manoj Harbhajanka at Acuitilabs and Richard Chan at SAP for their insights on how different business models are evolving and how billing systems need to keep pace, on “Pivoting from a Product to a Service and Subscription Economy.”

Pivoting from a Product to a Service and Subscription Economy

The Buzz 1: “AI will optimize or transform ‘nearly every activity in finance.’” (Craig Wilton, Gartner, quoted at www.cfodive.com/news/artificial-intelligence-gartner-finance-trends-2020/573233/) The Buzz 2: “Tech is in everything… 2021’s CFOs need to be more tech-savvy than ever. Indeed, with so much big data, A.I., and robotics technology available for CFOs to utilize, learning and incorporating tech into the traditional finance role is key.” (fortune.com/2021/06/21/cfo-technology-big-data-ai-robotics/) As we begin to come out of the pandemic, the ways of doing business have inevitably changed. Companies have discovered ways to be more flexible, respond faster to changing economic conditions, better serve customers, redefine supplier relationships, and create more efficient internal processes. CFOs at mid-market companies in particular are more invested in going beyond the status quo. By embracing automation and artificial intelligence (AI), they are optimizing their own processes to then provide valued advice at the executive table, armed with real-time insights and AI-driven predictions of the financial outcomes of strategic decisions. And with their time freed-up by automation, Finance can collaborate better with other lines of business, including leveraging AI to investigate the financial impact of strategies from core finance processes on HR, manufacturing, and sales. We’ll ask Birgit Starmanns at SAP, Dan Cupersmith at Analysis Prime and Bryan Pruner at Delaware Consulting for their take on Automation and AI: Helping Mid-Market CFOs Guide and Collaborate with the Business.

Automation and AI: Mid-Market CFOs Collaborating with Business

The Buzz: “I’m not paid or evaluated on the accuracy of my crystal-ball predictions. I’m paid to enumerate every possible outcome and do something about every possible outcome well in advance, when it’s still possible to do something, because once it’s happened it’s too late.” (Marty Chavez, Former CFO, Goldman Sachs) Is your organization struggling with finance transformation and future steering? How differently should you approach long-term thinking and planning, to be better prepared for future events and disruptions? It’s time for answers! A comprehensive enterprise-wide planning strategy goes beyond visualization and reporting. It entails enabling extended planning and analysis across the various lines of business, leveraging real-time insights and predictive capabilities for effective decision-making to bring everyone together. Innovating and empowering your business users through modern cloud-based solutions and models accompanied by AI-driven insights will help your organization stay agile and gain fast time-to-value to make the best business decisions, given our “new normal“ dynamic market changes. We’ll ask Pras Chatterjee at SAP and Jumen Rest and Neil Morton at PwC for their take on Extended Planning and Analysis for Resilient and Sustainable Organizations.

Extended Planning and Analysis: Resilient, Sustainable Companies

The Buzz 1: “Indirect attacks against weak links in the supply chain now account for 40 percent of security breaches.” (Accenture Security / Third State of Cyber Resilience Report, www.ironnet.com) The Buzz 2: Cybersecurity in the supply chain cannot be viewed as an IT problem only. Cyber supply chain risks touch sourcing, vendor management, supply chain continuity and quality, transportation security and many other functions across the enterprise and require a coordinated effort to address.” (csrc.nist.gov) In a renewed focus on supply chain risk management and protection, and to vet their suppliers’ cybersecurity maturity, the US Department of Defense and federal government have established the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). Direct suppliers and others will be required to reach a prescribed level of maturity and be certified by a third party just to qualify to do business with state and federal agencies. Industry observers expect these requirements will be adopted in the commercial space to mitigate supply chain risk there, as well. Heads-up to all CFOs: Not attaining CMMC certification for your supply chain cybersecurity may impact your ability to drive revenue and to do business. We’ll discuss why CFOs needs to focus on supply chain management impact on cash flow, working capital and shareholder value; best practices for supply chain risk management; the importance of these federal and state guidelines; and how to identify, define, and automate the essential data handling and security controls for sensitive data within the supply chain. We’ll ask Keyaan J. Williams at CLASS-LLC, Keng Lim at NextLabs and Anne Marie Colombo at SAP for their take on CFOs: Get Ready for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification!

CFOs: Get Ready for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification

The Buzz: “A majority of executives and investment professionals agreeing that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs enhance shareholder value…Finance leaders can help spur companies to develop sustainability goals by articulating the financial benefits of sustainability projects and establishing criteria for funding the company’s ESG investments that account for their full range of benefits.” www.cfo.com Sustainability isn’t just a global agenda. It’s a corporate agenda and a topic driving fervent discussion in board meetings around the world. Not surprisingly, the Office of the CFO is key and central to these discussions. Regulations and standards are still emerging and differ across geographies. One thing is clear: organizations will need to be accountable, responsible and in compliance with sustainability requirements, or face significant consequences. But many forward-looking organizations see sustainability as an opportunity to create something better, to become leaders in building sustainable profitable businesses. And sustainability will be a new way of doing business, meeting compliance, ethical and moral obligations while carving new competitive advantages. To achieve this, technology will play a big part in their change process. How can your organization prepare for the business and systems transformations needed for this brave new sustainable world? We’ll ask Simon Meitz and Jon Scott at EY, and Michel Haesendonckx at SAP for their take on Sustainability: A 21st Century Challenge for the CFO.

Sustainability: A 21st Century Challenge for the CFO

The Buzz: “As companies craft their responses to the COVID-19 crisis, CFOs are in the thick of the action. They need to make sure that their organizations weather the immediate business shocks while preparing them to emerge from the crisis in the best possible shape.” (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/cfo-leadership-in-the-covid-19-crisis) As we move to what is hopefully the beginning of the end of the global pandemic, companies are gearing up to regain strength as we expect the economy to rebound. More than ever, the role of the CFO continues to expand, as resources in finance and risk teams must stay in lock step with the business to anticipate and guide strategy to help companies during the economic recovery. Cash management is a key aspect of ensuring a company has the financial resources to thrive, through optimization of working capital, cash flow, and the close with real-time insight. We’ll ask Anthony Coletta at SAP, Molly Boyle at Blackline and Luke Carlson at Carlson Cash for their take on Quick Wins to Drive Value for CFOs in the Post-Pandemic Business World.

Quick Wins to Drive Value for CFOs in Post-Pandemic Business

Game-changing technologies are transformational, exciting, and can move you in amazing new directions. They get you thinking about new ways to scale, compete and grow –driving efficiency for existing finance operations, but also driving transformational change for the entire business. They shake up your status quo. Take your Coffee Break with Game-Changers on Tuesdays at 9 AM Pacific Time and 12 Noon Eastern Time for our special series on achieving FINANCIAL EXCELLENCE for your company. Learn how you can become the savvy innovator who takes your company across the finish line as you look ahead to the next breakthrough strategy. Financial Excellence with Game Changers, Presented by SAP, Tuesdays at 9 AM Pacific Time and 12 Noon Eastern Time on The Business Channel.

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Financial Excellence with Game Changers, presented by SAP

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