Finance
THREE QUESTIONS FINANCE LEADERS SHOULD BE ASKING THEMSELVES DURING THE PANDEMIC
Published
11 months agoon
By
admin
Chris Pope, Global VP of Innovation at ServiceNow
We’re living through unprecedented times, dealing with a situation completely out of our control. But while finance leaders have no way of managing the pandemic itself, they do have influence over how their business responds and adapts to the chaos left by COVID-19. And for many, it’s exposing cracks in their planning.
Enabling remote working is not a new thing; it’s a concept companies have grown with as they utilise technology to scale globally. But never has working from home been so robustly tested as it is right now.
Many organisations have adapted successfully as remote working has moved to an absolute necessity, but others are faring less well and it’s posing big problems for them. After all, how can a business react to the crisis if the staff it relies upon to keep things going are not equipped to carry on working?
It’s never too late to improve and technologies like the cloud make it possible to do so. But whether thriving or failing with remote working, there are three questions every leader should be asking themselves right now:
Question 1: How successful is your remote working strategy proving so far?
Success doesn’t mean perfection, but it does mean a content workforce doing the right work, at the right time, without wasting time or adding unnecessary cost to the business.
The measure of success or failure of your remote working strategy can’t be based on complaints about team members only having one screen to work on at home, or about kids occasionally interrupting video calls – those are normal distractions and that’s life.
A successful strategy needs to start with evidence of an understanding workforce, one that’s used to a flexible culture and is showing they’re prepared and able to adapt to these changing circumstances.
Success can be measured by teams having access to the tools they need to do their jobs properly and having solutions for their clients as quickly as possible, no matter where they’re logging in from. The ultimate goal is for the workforce to function as smoothly as it did prior to the virus outbreak.
Question 2: What will happen once the crisis subsides?
Strategy up until now would have likely focussed on digital transformation and using technology to help teams do their best work. But a very specific and catastrophic event has happened, and it will rightly make the C-suite nervous it could happen again. The ability to work remotely has shifted from a ‘nice-to-have’ for many, to a ‘must-have’ for almost everyone.
So, building and future-proofing a strategy which enables employees to work seamlessly, without costing or losing the business money, should be a key focus for finance leaders once we’re back to some kind of usual routine.
Leaders also need to prepare for a percentage of their workforce questioning why they need to return to the office. If employees have adapted and thrived through remote working, why should they spend thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours on daily commutes when they can achieve what they need to from home?
It’s essential that finance leaders make sure they’re prepared for the whole host of working-culture questions they’re likely to face on return to the office.
Question 3: How do you rethink your remote working strategy?
This is a crisis that’s going to take years for businesses to recover from, and it’s going to change the way people think about work. With buy-in from the C-suite and secure access to the cloud, it provides an opportunity for finance leaders to reimagine the working structure of their company.
There are many businesses where the very nature of their industry makes it impossible, or at least impractical, to allow a blanket policy of working from home. So, the first job in rethinking the strategy is understanding which roles could be done remotely. Using data, leaders can scrutinise which functions could be automated, freeing up teams to do more meaningful work, whether that be conducted in the office, in a cafe or at home.
For a company that’s solely on-premise, true remote working faces obstacles. But for teams working securely in the cloud without the constraints of outdated, manual, costly, and inefficient work processes, there are huge productivity and satisfaction benefits to be gained.
Those who have already embraced digital will stand the best chance of making it through these troubled times and set themselves up to thrive in the future. But a successful remote working structure comes from innovative thinking and a true desire to make working easier and more satisfying for your teams. So, for businesses yet to go digital, it’s not too late to use this as an opportunity to catch up.
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Finance
HOW FINANCIAL SERVICES BRANDS CAN TRANSFORM THE MUNDANE INTO MAGIC
Published
17 hours agoon
April 21, 2021By
admin
Ben Williams, Global Chief Experience Officer at R/GA London
We are living through an era of generational change. The last twelve months have been defined by uncertainty, and as we stepped into uncharted territory we witnessed society shift and consumer behaviour change occur at breakneck speed.
For businesses, the speed and scale of this change has felt at times daunting. There are questions at every corner. How do we navigate working from home? When will we return to normal? How are the lives of our customers changing? How are the lives of our employees changing? What are the rules of the new normal? How does this affect our proposition? Are we changing fast enough?
But just as uncertainty creates anxiety, change creates opportunity.
To help financial brands and the commodities industry navigate this uncertainty and focus on opportunity, we at R/GA have highlighted five key areas of focus. These pillars allow financial services and commodities brands to transform the mundane into magic, adapting to surpass consumer expectations and rise above the competition.
View your brand as an operating system
The core DNA of a brand shouldn’t just be a poster in the cafeteria, or slapped onto a brand’s website and as a message to the world. The brand’s active purpose should truly inform all the different ways a brand shows up, across physical and digital and inform things like service offerings, business decisions, as well as marketing messages. Those words in a mission statement should mean something, and be proven in how a business operates and engages with people. With consumer expectations at an all-time high, people expect it. The world expects it.
Understand the power of experience and use it to differentiate
Don’t underestimate the power of an elevated experience – regardless of industry. By focusing on the needs of your people, customers and employees, challenges quickly open up and become areas of opportunity.
Creating a category defining experience often means looking outside of your own category – just as consumers will do. When a service or experience is elevated in any category, it has a huge impact on expectations of people. This experience sets the bar, and consumers will then expect similar levels of service, innovation and thoughtfulness to be applied to all aspects of their life from any brand they interact with. When people see something better, they want everything to be better. This is the concept we call ‘Service Transference’ – and it is defining how brands are experienced in the modern world.
Commodity based industries have a huge opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competitors through an elevated and differentiated experience when engaging with the brand, product or service.
For years, computers were a commodity, some were a little faster, some had better/minor features, but for the most part the differences were minimal. Apple changed the game by focusing on the experience. It differentiated itself beyond the speed of chips and processors. Insurance and other commodity-based industries should look to do the same. Insurance companies, as an example, could look to understand people dynamically through technology, and respond with services and experiences that can tailor solutions to serve their individual needs.
Innovate at all scales and for all people
Innovation has become a term thrown around as a catch-all for teams or people thinking about what is next. Too often however, teams fall in love with the idea of being credited and becoming famous for the next idea that changes the world.
Instead, brands should focus on elevating some of the smaller things. This means taking a deep-dive into the fundamentals, giving time to the less sexy things, because these are often the factors which have the most impact on people’s experiences with brands and their lives.
Beyond the emotional value, there is a functional value insurance companies can, and should be delivering. The experience of engaging with an insurance brand should go well beyond filling out a form. It should know me, who I am, my goals, my personal or family situation, and adapt accordingly over time. It should respond to the world around me, and to my life as it happens. Enabling your service offering to be tailored and customized will provide real functional value that what they are paying for is exactly what they need and want. Responding to real human needs and events as they happen is the clearest way to show you care.
Recognise that life has changed.
Brands that can adapt and be there for people will ultimately win. Insurance is an industry founded on the principles of being there for people when life happens. And life is happening right now.
Insurance brands have to deliver emotional value by supporting customers. To do this, brands need to strike the right balance between being active and present in a customer’s life, and knowing when to get out of the way. Beyond the annual insurance payment reminder, ask yourself, “When are the other moments throughout a year, or in someone’s life that they should feel supported?”
Insurance brands have a huge opportunity to shift what they are famous for and how they show up in the world. Given the changes we have seen in consumer expectations, the industry itself and the technology landscape, insurance brands that want to win should be focusing on delivering peace of mind and offering customers agency over their own solution.
Always dream big and act small
For commodities businesses, the opportunity for blue sky thinking is massive. But don’t forget that often the most meaningful change comes from innovating some of the smaller, more foundational pieces of your business and experience. The impact you can have on someone’s life, especially at times when they most need support, should never be underestimated – or mismanaged from an experience perspective. Listen to people, their needs and what they want. Your customers, and the world will thank you.
Finance
TECH TRENDS: THE FUTURE OF FINANCE IS DIGITAL
Published
17 hours agoon
April 21, 2021By
admin
Simon Bull, Sales Operations & Business Development Manager, Aqilla
Everywhere you look across the modern working environment, there is pressure to ‘digitally transform’ by using technology in areas where manual work and processes have previously been the preferred option. Despite growing momentum in general, progress across the finance function has been somewhat slower than other core areas of business, not least because it is highly regulated and teams must exercise caution to ensure introducing change does not also introduce risk.
One familiar scenario is the approach finance departments take to storing data, particularly any sensitive information, on their own premises and their own hardware. While keeping valuable assets such as this close to hand offers a strong sense of security and control, it illustrates the limitations finance teams face in changing traditional approaches and, as a result, the relatively slow pace of technology-focused innovation overall.
However, the case to embrace tech-led change is becoming irresistible, with businesses everywhere highlighting a huge range of digital transformation benefits, from cost savings and technology performance to IT security and compliance. In the current environment, many finance teams have also experienced first hand the impact of digital transformation, with remote working bringing new technologies and digital services into focus.

Simon Bull
But, where are we heading? As digital transformation gains momentum across the finance function, where should teams be looking for opportunities to update manual processes or to replace outdated technologies? And where might the trends at the heart of this movement – such as cloud computing – have the biggest impact on the day-to-day experience of finance professionals?
The role of cloud computing raises a key point. For finance teams, digital transformation also requires a change of mindset, perhaps best illustrated by a willingness to move away from outdated in-house technology infrastructure and software products to flexible and more financially efficient cloud-based services. In doing so, it becomes possible to focus on opportunities and priorities:
Cost savings
One of the most important is the cost of technology. The cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach that can offer users the convenience of a monthly pay-as-you-go payment model for a range of key technologies, such as accounting software. This is in contrast to traditional IT procurement models where businesses have to invest significant sums in one-off software purchases. What’s more, because SaaS users typically only need access to a laptop and internet connectivity to use cloud-based applications, it also saves money on the server hardware that has previously sat in the corner of the office, and in fact, it may no longer be needed at all. In selecting cloud-based finance software services, organisations should always compare pricing from several providers to make sure they are getting the most competitive deal.
Technology Performance
Today’s cloud-based finance software solutions are available with a growing range of options, starting with simple, entry-level functionality to the opposite end of the scale to products offering powerful performance designed to fit the needs of even the biggest and most complex finance departments. Important features and functions to look out for should include: extensive analysis, proper periodic management and business calendars, multi-currency, multilingual and multi-company operation, full VAT handling International coding, tax and language flexibility, automatic reconciliation / bank integration, built-in key performance measurement, advanced search, selection and drill-down, document and image scanning.
Stronger security
Many cloud providers now have security at the top of their list of capabilities, but checking their accreditations, policies and security track record should always form part of any selection process. This should include areas such as data protection, backup services and their ability to deal with common security issues, such as ransomware.
Service standards
When looking at cloud service providers, finance teams should also focus on the quality of service on offer. At its best, cloud-based customer support and service can deliver an outstanding experience where the provider really feels like an extension of the in-house IT Team. The best way to check on the service capabilities of any cloud provider is to ask for references from existing customers, check online reviews and evaluate their Service Level Agreement (SLA) to understand the small print of any terms and their impact on service levels.
Compliance
Compliance is front of mind across the finance function and is an area where the specialisation offered by many cloud software solutions can be of huge benefit. Even for the most niche requirements, there is often a software provider out there who has a solution designed to meet very specific needs, and in embracing these technologies, the efficiency and accuracy benefits can be truly transformational.
The challenges seen across the economy over the past 12 months have significantly accelerated the pace of technology-led change, finance teams included. But, cloud-based finance software services can help teams to widen their approach to innovation, embrace the flexibility offered by remote working on a permanent basis and deliver a range of operational and customer-focused benefits for the long term.
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