Finance transformation - The time is now

Business transformation projects are increasingly being undertaken to facilitate growth, reduce costs and increase competitiveness in a harsh global marketplace where only the organisations who continually evolve and innovate prosper. The finance function is not immune to this transformation process and can play a key role in its development and adoption.

In its Digital Finance Transformation: 10 Imperatives for CFOs report, Gartner highlights that: “69% of business leaders say digitalization initiatives are accelerating, and most expect digital technologies to dramatically transform their industry by 2026. These pressures meet at the CFO, who now faces a critical dual mandate: Lead the finance function through a digital transformation and enable the organization to accelerate digitalization.”

To assess if your organisation could benefit from a finance transformation project, consider the following questions:

• Do you have a number of disparate IT systems in operation?
• Do you invest and have to maintain on-premise or ‘in-house’ developed systems?
• Are your users involved with repetitive day to day tasks?
• Are you confident with the financial reporting and analysis currently produced?
• Can you easily integrate with other applications?
• Can you quickly and efficiently deal with new acquisitions and divestments?
• Do you operate a true multi-company, multi-currency and multi-language finance solution?
• Are you confident about the security and integrity of your data?
• Can you easily keep up to date with changing regulatory requirements?
• Do you have a comprehensive business continuity / disaster recovery plan?

If any of these questions cause you concerns, then a finance transformation project could be a worthwhile journey to undertake. The starting point for a finance transformation project is to understand how the finance function need to evolve to support the business strategy. A key component is the finance business system that is employed. The system needs to be flexible, scalable, resilient, secure and globally capable to facilitate growth.

Traditional on-premise or ‘in-house’ developed systems often inhibit finance transformations as they struggle to keep pace with ever evolving business requirements. They are often costly to maintain, slow to implement changes and have to constantly battle to stay current with the latest security updates. Modern cloud based solutions are increasingly being utilised to overcome these limitations. These systems are cost effective, secure, flexible and benefit from regular functionality updates. This allows you to focus on developing your business.

How can Infor SunSystems help?

The SunSystems Cloud solutions have been designed to enable your finance transformation journey by incorporating the following key features:

• A true Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud based solution. All infrastructure, security, support and business continuity services are included. Regular functionality updates are provided.
• A ‘unified’ ledger – your accounts are always in balance and there is no need for time-consuming reconciliation processes.
• Fully integrated document management, workflows and alerts.
• Social business collaboration tools via Infor ‘Ming.le’.
• Comprehensive and secure integration tools.
• Full multi- company, multi-currency and multi-language capabilities for true global coverage.
• Comprehensive reporting and business intelligence capabilities via Infor ‘Query & Analysis’ - a fully integrated, Excel based solution to extract and upload information from and to SunSystems in real-time.

Next Steps

If you decide that a cloud based solution hosted by a dedicated team of experts is the most cost-effective and risk-averse route to achieving your finance transformation, visit our website for a deeper understanding of what SunSystems can offer your organisation.