CFOs have a key role in growth — here’s how SAP S/4HANA Cloud helps drive it

Market disruption, rapid technology advances, new business models, changing relationships with customers, partners and suppliers — the demands and expectations placed on CFOs have changed radically, and so has the nature and complexity of their role.

In fact, recent Accenture research identified how today’s CFOs are expanding their remit to be economic guardians, architects of business value, and catalysts of digital strategy.

The evidence? Consider the fact that over two-thirds of CFOs now say they have the final say on the technology direction of the enterprise. And over half say finance helps shape the enterprise digital technology agenda from the very beginning.1

The need for speed … and more

Have finance systems and processes kept pace with this rapid evolution of the CFO role? Not always. In fact, CFOs face a range of technology and data-related challenges, especially when it comes to moving faster and adapting rapidly to new circumstances.

Let’s consider some specific examples.

Many finance functions still struggle to get core financial data fast enough and generate predictive insights from it. This is usually caused by fragmented legacy technology and siloed sub-ledgers, as well as lengthy reporting and planning cycles. The result? Uncertainty in forecasting and planning. And challenges in ensuring the integrity of financial statements.

When it comes to architecting business value more broadly, many CFOs also struggle to generate the rapid insights they need from data sources outside their traditional remit. This is coupled with the need to manage increasingly complex processes and cost pressures, skills gaps, and a scarcity of digitally literate finance talent.

Then there’s the question of how to navigate a very different technology landscape and operating environment and position the finance function as a technology leader within the enterprise. That includes, for example, managing a growing array of digital security threats and meeting new expectations for environmental, social and corporate governance among consumers, investors, employees, and regulators.

A multidimensional solution

The complexity of these challenges means CFOs need to think holistically — about the technology the finance function uses, the data, the operating model, and the talent mix.

So, for example, CFOs should be looking to define a data strategy that ensures data is coordinated, managed, and governed enterprise-wide, aiming for a single source of financial truth across the organization.

They should be willing to rethink their operating models, looking to reallocate service delivery across finance functions and processes and realign resources for new business priorities. And they should be looking to reskill and upskill the finance workforce.

However, there’s no doubt that technology is the critical enabler of finance transformation. Here, CFOs should be looking to refocus on cloud-based systems and platforms that can scale, that bring strategic agility, that provide easy access to accurate real-time data, and that enable powerful predictive analytics.

RISE with SAP

RISE with SAP is a comprehensive set of packages designed to help companies transform and innovate, redesign their business processes, reduce internal complexity, and adopt new business models in the cloud.

At the core is SAP S/4HANA Cloud: SAP’s complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) system on a public cloud. Because it’s provided as a service under a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, it helps companies benefit from leading SAP capabilities without having to manage the underlying hardware, applications, or database technology.

The solution has matured rapidly and is now running successfully in many companies around the world. It’s a robust and viable option that enables CFOs to deliver innovation and automation at speed and scale.

Consider, for example, how valuable features like universal journal and parallel accounting, cash and liquidity management, highly automated processes, or integrated planning/forecasting analytics would be to a CFO’s economic guardianship role. The solution also comes with compliance baked in by design, with over 30 controls available out of the box.

Then, there’s the fact that it provides powerful analytics, industry-leading practices, data standardization, and a fit-to-standard approach. These are all critical capabilities for a CFO acting as an architect of business value. And an important step towards creating a single source of financial truth for the enterprise.

Finally, consider the possibilities for catalyzing the enterprise digital strategy. SAP S/4HANA Cloud can typically be implemented in just four to six months. That’s a step-change in deployment speed compared with typical ERP implementations.

CFOs also get quarterly releases of new innovations, such as new capabilities to support rapidly evolving environmental, social and governance requirements. And because it’s in the cloud, it’s inherently more flexible and extensible. That has the potential to dramatically streamline merger scenarios.

In fact, in Accenture’s experience, CFOs can expect to see improved performance in several key areas:

• Reduce Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) by four to six days through greater automation
• Reduce TCO by up to 60 percent
• Reduce days to invoice to two to three days
• Generate significant operational savings through inventory visibility and procurement optimization

How to get started

Accenture’s depth and breadth of experience in SAP S/4HANA Cloud can help any organization accelerate its SAP cloud journey. And to complement RISE with SAP, SOAR with Accenture offers a whole range of preconfigured industry solutions, business process models, extensibility architectures, end-to-end delivery capabilities, cloud-native technologies and industry cloud solutions.

We can support the full end-to-end transformation, from initial strategy through to delivery at scale, leveraging a truly global presence that includes delivery centers in locations all around the world. It means we can help companies navigate their choices, and identify an approach to cloud transformation that reduces risk and accelerates value.

As CFOs contemplate their new and expanded role in driving business growth, they need to make sure they have the right technology foundation. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a robust option for getting core business workloads to the cloud faster — driving higher performance and new levels of innovation.

If you’d like to know more about how Accenture and SAP can help your finance function, please leave a comment below or send me a message.

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