Roadmap to a Finance Organization

There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction - Winston Churchil

The key to change. is to let go of fear --- Rosanne Cash

The path of transformation of a finance organization should begin from a well laid out plan of action with a programmatic approach.The plan should empower the enterprise to develop its competencies working with the right people in order to bring change in the very core thinking of the whole business organization.

There should be then setting up of technology and infrastructure to support the intended changes.

Change in basic finance functioning can initially be resisted as it consumes time, energy and committed management. Many in the enterprise would rather be comfortable in the old system than try to set up something new, which even have probable chances of going wrong and affecting the entire business functioning.

For this, it requires very high level of commitment not only from the middle-level management staff but an enthusiastic participation from the entire high level management body, including the regional leaders, CFOs, CEOs and other Board members. The organization should not just adopt the finance organization but should also stake their reputation at its success.

Once decided on the transformation, the finance professionals should come out with a detailed report on the current state of the finance function in the organization. It can be argued here that as the organization will be adopting one standard set of processes, it may not be very important to define all the right processes.

The graphical representation is part of the Global CFO Study, 2008, conducted by IBM. It illustrates the roadmap documenting the evolving and transforming of an integrated finance organization.

The above graphical representation showcases how a finance organization can begin from addressing the problems and evolve while finding new advantages and pathways through strong risk management and contribute in the development of business processes for a steeper growth of the organization.

The determination of the business organization‘s position on the roadmap would be the first step to become a finance organization with an effective risk management function. As each organization has its own strengths and weaknesses, it would be the most crucial challenge for the CFO to determine the right path as each path forward will be equally unique.

It is time for business enterprises to fast wake up to the advanced definitions of globalizations and work towards the consistent maintaining of governance, transparency and information integrity across the organization. This will make them well positioned in understanding the market and outperform their competitors.

The CFOs can emerge as important leaders in their organization as they take ownership of the finance organization.

According to the IBM study, For the enterprise to live up to this vision, change and integration will need to come from all areas of the business, not just Finance. With this in mind, the CFO can be a leader in this charge, armed with the facts and trusted with the reins of the enterprise in confident hands.