by Andrew Foster, VP Consulting EMEA, AppZen
As we enter a new year filled with ongoing change and uncertainty, a few things are still clear. Though digital transformation has long been a familiar story told across the finance sector, businesses are recognising the need to adopt new technologies as a matter of urgency. As a result, 2021 will see a huge shift towards embracing technologies that transform finance procedures.
Anant Kale, Co-Founder and CEO, AppZen, shares his finance predictions for 2021:
The year of accelerated digital transformation
The current pandemic forced companies of all sizes, across nearly every industry, to virtualise their workforce, almost overnight. But in the coming year, finance leaders will be turning their attention to wider digitalisation efforts.
Kale explains, “Last year, the focus was on how to quickly keep up with changing business needs, with CIOs focusing on business continuity in a remote work environment—conferencing and collaboration tools, network upgrades, and so on. As we finally caught our breath, this next year will bring even deeper transformation. Rethinking and reimagining business processes in an AI-first world will keep enterprises agile, efficient, compliant and allow them to scale without relying on adding huge headcounts, which will be critical to the bottom line.”
Consequently, more CFOs will be driving the push for AI-powered programmes to be implemented into finance operations to accelerate digital transformation, streamlining operations across the entire enterprise and ensuring business resilience.
Expanding digital transformation – beyond the basics
Over the past year, the drive to enable remote working across the whole organisation has meant the deployment of a wide variety of technologies. Yet, most of these solutions are not in areas that directly increase the finance department’s efficiency. This year, finance leaders will be prioritising two specific functions that are prime for disruption and enhancement – AI-based invoice processing and expense auditing.
“Increasingly, AP invoice processing decisions will be made in the autonomous zone, where intelligent systems can independently make decisions that don’t require human second guessing or manual review,” said Kale. “With autonomous AP, systems that are capable of evaluating all aspects of invoice entry, matching, accounting approvals and even risk and compliance, AP teams will be able to move from operations to more strategic AP concerns.”
AppZen’s recent survey of top CFOs and finance executives confirms the need for deeper transformation in 2021. Currently, 59 per cent respondents report they still haven’t automated ingestion and extraction of data from invoices. Unsurprisingly then, a notable 43.5 per cent of organisations still take seven or more days on average to process an invoice. Organisations with more proficient automated processes only take 2.9 days to process an invoice on average — a considerable difference that supports the need for increased automation and AI uptake among modern finance teams.
Adapting for expenses in the 2021 work-world
CFOs will need to budget for different types of business expenses in light of the new environment. With an evolving workforce that includes remote, on-site and hybrid workers, they need to rethink their strategies and plan scenarios in ways they’ve never had to do before.
To this point, Kale comments, “Business travel will come back in some form later this year, but more importantly, the nature of expenses that have traditionally been associated with travel and entertainment (T&E) will change. Instituting routine audits and implementing clear expense policies will be critical to avoid fraud and abuse or unreliable financial data, which cost businesses nearly $3B dollars a year—and that was before the pandemic.”
As the spend environment becomes more complex, spend visibility is more vital now than ever. Finance leaders need to have the right tools in place to identify these new types of expenses – such as the number of video conferencing licences acquired, home office equipment, and productivity software – and properly assess spend priorities.
Flexibility is also crucial. In a rapidly-evolving environment, a one-size-fits-all policy isn’t up to standard. “How enterprises create and allocate budgets has been completely disrupted and what worked in the past won’t work in 2021,” declares Kale. “We’ve gone from a relatively certain, predictable way of carrying out business operations to a time where only the unpredictable seems certain, which requires agility, speed, and scale to ensure longevity and continuity.”
Conclusion
Despite challenging times, finance leaders are showing optimism for 2021. This year will require adaptability in the face of evolving global economic conditions in order to meet not only wider company needs, but those of employees as well. Embracing new technologies will continue to transform operations across every level of an organisation and enable business leaders to drive both productivity and profitability despite the uncertainty ahead.
