FinancialForce posed a great question, “What If Every CFO Had Their Own AI?” The purpose of this post was to examine how artificial intelligence transforms businesses for financial professionals. However, for some CFOs, there is still uncertainty even though they know they need to embrace AI.
This surfaces three factors that CFOs need to consider to help them lead the AI journey with confidence.
Efficiency
The goal of any company is to maximize the most valued resource they have – people. However, with the urgency to be agile and flexible, reliance on technology to boost efficiency is needed.
Financial professionals are realizing the need to deploy AI as a valuable tech tool. According to Forbes and IDC Info Snapshot, “28% of respondents plan to deploy AI within their business applications to automate business processes“.
Efficacy
It might be said that the road to efficiency is paved with good intentions. The reason is that in the effort to be efficient, many overlook a key piece: How effective are our processes?
Slapping artificial intelligence on top of a bad or outdated process is like putting lipstick on a pig. At the end of the day, it’s still a bad process.
In order to embrace AI, a CFO needs to step back and reevaluate the financial and periphery processes. Next, pull in the right people that understand the business and where processes can be improved. Lastly, put a Financial Center of Excellence in place to ensure the longevity of the efficacy.
Agility
Agility is defined as the ability to move or think quickly and easily. In our technology-soaked world, it’s extremely important for companies to adopt an agile mentality from not only a tech perspective but a process perspective.
An agile CFO knows how to navigate the company forward with speed and adaptability. And, they realize the knowledge is the root of being nimble in a digital environment. AI capabilities are continuously evolving at a surprising pace which forces someone to stop and ask, “If not now, then when?”
Final Thoughts
These three components coupled with a CFO’s experiential knowledge will give them the confidence to embrace AI. Lastly, lead the company to accept AI as a valid solution to improve the company. People will accept change when they are guided by certainty.
