Navigating Financial Resilience in Uncertain Times: Strategies for CFOs
In the face of economic, technological, and social challenges, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) find themselves navigating uncertain times; especially after the pandemic, many enterprises struggled to adapt to the ‘new normal’. The ever-changing landscape of the business world proves that strategic planning and risk management are the need of the hour to ensure financial resilience.
Being ready to battle both short-term and long-term financial challenges requires a fundamental shift where finance leaders must embrace change and invest in technology that can help businesses move effortlessly even in uncharted waters. In this article, we explore strategies that CFOs can employ to navigate uncertain times by focusing on key areas and using advanced tech.
Keeping All Stakeholders Informed with a Single Source of Truth
CFOs are quickly moving into the role of business strategists as they try to achieve a higher level of data integrity. As data systems become more fragmented than ever with multichannel and omnichannel approaches, business leaders are relying on a ‘single source of truth’. This is tremendously necessary to bring data-based evidence to all the members of an organization and confidence in decision-making. For example, the marketing, accounting, and customer service teams all operating on different platforms may create confusion and lead to a loss of productivity, which may ultimately affect the outcomes throughout the enterprise.
With the abundance of data available, it is crucial for CFOs to have a centralized system that provides accurate and real-time information. Having a single source of truth allows for eliminating multiple checks and data validation steps by different parties before a report is shared. This not only enhances transparency but also promotes informed decision-making across the organization.
Leveraging Advanced Technology in Finance
Tech advancements, instead of being observed as threats, are being viewed as opportunities for financial stability, steadily eliminating dependence on manual processes. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and other data-driven technologies are making way for business as well as people transformation. Replacing manual transactions with automated functions based on data can help finance move from the role of gatekeeper to strategic business guide.
For example, AI finance tools can help in getting market analysis and outperforming human trades for faster and better decision-making. Similarly, AI can make a huge difference in risk analysis and investment management by automatically and accurately estimating clients’ creditworthiness. On the regulations and compliance front, AI can analyze data, detect deviations, and follow rules correctly to avoid potential risks. Machine learning and AI-based technology coupled with automation strategies can bring tons of opportunities for improvement and alignment in the finance sector.
Cash Flow Forecasting
Cash flow forecasting is a critical aspect in organizations looking to prepare for uncertain future demands. By accurately predicting cash inflows and outflows, CFOs can effectively manage liquidity and mitigate potential financial risks. In addition to knowing how cash flows in and out, they must be able to accurately predict the same for the near future. As a result, enterprises are increasingly investing in cash flow management tools that can automate actions and predict the company’s future cash flow. This can involve giving a realistic picture of cash availability, identifying possible cash shortages, offering suggestions on managing spending, maintaining strategies to continue making a profit and keeping investors, banks and all the stakeholders happy with the state of the business. With tons of historical data, changing market trends, and external factors presenting themselves, CFOs must identify tools or services that allow easily and quickly accessing such insights to make proactive decisions, optimize working capital, and ensure the financial stability of the organization.
Tech Mahindra’s Cognitive AI-Based BPaaS Solution to Ace Finance
Tech Mahindra’s cognitive AI-based BPaaS solution is designed to bring intelligence to finance and assist CFOs in driving growth and profitability while minimizing risks. With this AI-powered solution, we are helping our customers minimize their digital footprint and optimize the cost of finance operations and working capital. The idea is to provide actionable insights by integrating data sources from various IT systems. What strengthens our offering is a ‘Single Source of Truth’ to ensure reliable and best-in-class finance functions.
With its AI-powered capabilities, Tech Mahindra is helping CFOs track company-wide productivity metrics across multiple geographies and business units. Based on advanced data-mining capabilities, our end-to-end finance tool takes organization-wide data, irrespective of the complexity, and converts it into useful insights to propel businesses in the right direction. It enables greater visibility into cash flow and trends, allowing for streamlining accounting and finance operations, which can have a tangible impact on the company’s growth and profitability.
To learn more about how CFOs can drive analytics-driven change in their organizations, visit our website and drop your queries here.
