The Digital Revolution has transformed the way businesses work now. The roles of C-level executives have evolved; the roles also overlap at various stages, and therefore, the need for collaborative tools has increased. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), apart from their core role of finance management, also guide their organization in minimizing risks, rationalizing costs, and finding strategic growth opportunities.
For them to be able to accomplish these tasks, they need a top-down view of the enterprise-wide data. A modern ERP system, implemented to give a full spectrum of operational and financial data across the enterprise, enables a CFO to take quick data-driven decisions to support their strategic endeavors.
Here are the 4 key ways in which a modern ERP system helps the CFO in performing their core tasks successfully:
Get a Single, Unified View of Enterprise Data
An ERP system helps the CFO get a consolidated view of the financial data and a real-time view of the core business processes across the enterprise. It not only offers cost-effective ways of collecting, processing, and analyzing data, but also ensures that no data is lost in the systems’ silos. With visibility into the full spectrum of the organization’s operational and financial data, the CFO can read multiple data variables, how they impact each and other, and the enterprise performance. In short, it enables the CFO to make quicker, data-driven decisions.
Enable Performance Tracking
An ERP system also enables the CFO to get visibility into how the company is performing against the defined financial and operational KPIs. Based on the performance results, the CFO can take corrective measures and ensure the critical challenges are addressed in time. When topped with a powerful analytics tool, an ERP system can also enable the CFO to leverage historical data and predictive analytics to read the organizational trends and plan better.
Make the Enterprise Compliance Ready
To ensure the organization meets the mandatory compliance requirements is also one of the core jobs of a CFO. With an ERP system in place, the CFO gets a high-level toolset for managing compliance and finance-related reporting. The CFO can use the ERP reporting interface to investigate and remediate regulatory compliance deficiencies across the business processes and then take immediate corrective actions if required.
Make Businesses Cost-Optimized and Scalable
Cost optimization and enterprise scalability fall under the purview of a CFO. A cloud-based ERP enables the CFO to cut down exorbitant cost investments required for the maintenance of the legacy IT infrastructure. It also supports the growth and expansion plan of the company without any additional investment required for hardware and software installation in a new location. In addition, a cloud-based ERP system can also be easily integrated with the online accounting, financial management tools — which enables the CFO to get a holistic view of the organization’s health.
Conclusion
A CFO is a strategic partner for the CEO and the rest of the C-suite, who brings in expertise in the areas of risk management and capital allocation. Therefore, their larger financial and operational decisions can’t be based on guesswork and fragmented data sets.
An ERP system, when installed to give the CFO a full spectrum of operational and financial data across the enterprise, acts as the biggest support system for the CFO. It not only enables them to get a holistic and real-time view of the enterprise data to make integral business decisions but also enables them to address cost-optimization and compliance issues if any.
Curious about integrating an ERP system into your business? Contact an expert at Synoptek today.
