Dynshaw Italia, CFO at Soldo
If we’ve learned anything over the past two years, it’s that uncertainty is the new certainty. Running a business is always a risky venture, and every company is subject to a degree of financial risk. But even though it’s possible to plan for particular issues, not all financial risks are able to be controlled. For example, businesses across the globe are dealing with everything from the latest cost of living crisis driving a squeeze on budgets, to supply chain issues leaving them trying to figure out how to service their customers. With these changing circumstances, it’s understandable that many business leaders feel like they’re stuck in a never-ending state of limbo.
At a time of growing economic insecurity, businesses must make sure they become nimbler in both structure and decision-making. Leveraging the right spend management tools will enable finance teams to feed into the company’s strategic process, helping them prepare for unforeseeable future challenges. Having the processes and, more importantly, the tools in place to ensure real visibility throughout the organisation, understanding what is going on in the market and having the information to hand to make the right changes when the business needs to adapt, is critical for futureproofing businesses. Is this why we’re seeing more businesses embrace transformative technologies that ensure the effective decision-making and employee wellbeing needed to lessen the blow of any unexpected challenges?
Digital transformation as the key to regaining control
The pandemic shone a light on where businesses really are on their digital transformation journeys, and it was clear those that weren’t far along enough suffered. As businesses move forward to the ‘bounce-back’ phase this continues to be important with PwC’s latest Pulse Survey finding 60% of executives say digital transformation is their most critical growth driver in 2022. With more time needed to concentrate on strategic tasks to avoid risk, being able to automate tedious work and organise cluttered processes, such as invoice processing, has given businesses the freedom they need to grow in a post-pandemic world. With less room for human error, businesses ensure they are safe from the risks posed by uncertain circumstances.
By creating a simple onboarding system and reducing time-consuming admin work, businesses can maximise the impact of each employee’s time so they can be as effective as possible. As a result, individuals no longer have to spend time collecting data before taking action, and this extra time can be used to allow whole teams to contribute to decision-making processes – enabling innovation that may not otherwise have been possible.
Effective strategic decision-making requires operational transparency
The ongoing turbulence we’re witnessing is leaving many businesses at a crisis point in their operational management. With businesses having to make rapid decisions on their strategy – a lack of operational visibility hinders their ability to respond to and anticipate future risks. If they are to be ready for any eventuality, companies need to start implementing information-sharing tools that will increase company-wide transparency.
Transparency is key to avoiding past mistakes and gaining future successes, and the amount of data spend management tools offer to finance teams lets them dig deep into where the business is going wrong, or going right, with their finances. Being able to access the history of outgoing payments in all accounts and track ongoing subscriptions ensures every decision is supported by accurate and visible data.
Finance teams no longer have the time to be using multiple different programs to organise their accounts, expenses and other outgoing costs. Instead, they need integrated software that allows them to focus on the bigger picture, rather than spending time moving between all of the platforms across their business. Spend management tools that can integrate with third-party accounting software let finance teams seamlessly onboard to a single platform where all their data is in one place.
Spend management tools and employee wellbeing
It is not just employees who have been affected by the instability brought on by recent issues from short staffing and COVID-19. According to the Office for National Statistics, the percentage of businesses with 10 or more employees that experienced staff shortages was 34% in early April, up from 31% in March 2022. Burdening employees with lengthy and complicated manual work is no longer acceptable when there’s technology to help support. For example, expensing processes is an extra pressure in an already difficult time, which may dissuade employees from fully claiming and expensing receipts. Automatically tracking and uploading purchases made on company cards with spend management tools removes this burden from both employees and finance teams.
Spend management tools that offer companion apps are even more efficient for employee use, with built-in receipt capture and approvals meaning reimbursements can happen almost instantly. Providing employees with a system that is simple to use and works around their lifestyle will leave them less stressed and can even improve their productivity.
For business owners, vital technologies may hold the key to staying afloat as the world of finance turns upside down. Manual methods of business spend management are frustrating and time-consuming. Automating these processes improves the overall employee experience for those who make purchases and those who approve them. It reduces admin, improves the quality of spend data, and gives finance teams better visibility and more control over budgets. Over the next decade, businesses will continue to see massive change, be it from the pandemic, cost of living crisis, or a hurdle not yet on the horizon. But while there is still a great deal of uncertainty, it only poses a real threat if businesses do not fully prepare for it.
