Over the past few years, the business world has undergone massive changes as a result of artificial intelligence (AI). From call centres to factory floors, AI is revolutionising how organisations operate, promising massive improvements in efficiency and customer service.
While a great deal of focus has been placed on the role the technology plays in customer-facing interactions, AI’s biggest impact is being felt in back-end processes. Using AI techniques like machine learning and neural networks to automate tasks, optimise performance and enhance security, companies are finding new ways to improve operational efficiency, freeing up their people for better, faster service delivery.
The finance function, in particular, has started seeing massive benefits from the use of AI. When it is integrated into a modern enterprise performance management (EPM) solution, AI helps drive strategic decision-making for growth and profitability, identify risks and opportunities, and shape future strategies.
From number crunchers to innovators
An AI-enabled EPM platform can help finance leaders become the forward-thinking strategists that meet modern business demands. Not only does the technology ensure greater accuracy, it can enable innovation by freeing up teams to focus on new approaches and growth strategies.
Accounting Today reports that 59% of finance professionals are already using AI-based tools and applications to save an average of 30 hours of work per week. Data from ICit Business Intelligence indicates that two thirds (66%) of finance professionals believe that AI is set to save between 50 and 200 hours of work annually, enabling them to focus on more value-added activities like strategic planning.
While the office of finance has not traditionally been associated with innovation, this is changing thanks to AI. Not only do finance professionals have more time to dedicate to the many “what-if” questions that have traditionally had best-guess answers, AI’s capability to simulate multiple variables and outcomes is empowering them to generate far more sophisticated scenario analysis.
Choose an integrated EPM platform
According to Forrester, companies that haven’t started experimenting with AI are already behind. AI is, in Forrester’s estimation, the most impactful technological advancement since the internet. CFOs seem to agree. Seventy percent of CFOs believe that organisations that don’t invest in AI tech infrastructure and skills won’t survive the next five years, according to OneStream’s Finance 2035: Return to Investment report. This research also found that 74% of CFOs believe that AI and automation will completely reshape organisations’ finance function by 2035.
Considering that financial transactions are becoming increasingly complex, regulations are constantly evolving, and companies are generating vast amounts of data every day, it’s not hard to see why AI is such a game-changer for finance teams. While AI handles the finance department’s day-to-day tasks by automating data collection and routinely generating reports, CFOs can focus on simulating scenarios, anticipating disruptions and identifying opportunities.
AI is not a replacement for finance professionals. Rather, it is a tool finance teams can use to become more strategic, focusing on higher-value activities such as strategic analysis, forecasting and predictive analytics. Successfully navigating the future therefore requires understanding which tasks AI excels at and which demand human engagement and insight.
For CFOs, this is much easier to achieve when they have access to an EPM platform that has integrated AI capabilities. There is so much hype about AI that organisations have a multitude of solutions to choose from. However, the term is being used to apply to everything from true AI capabilities to simple statistical models. An integrated platform can help finance leaders gain the benefits AI promises without having to worry about the integration of multiple tools, or the disillusionment of so-called intelligent technologies failing to deliver.
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