In the digital economy, the Chief Financial Officer role has transformed. The CFO is at the core of driving the corporate and digital strategy. Moreover, in today’s rapidly changing economy, it is harder than ever to manage the financial activates.
In the digital economy, the Chief Financial Officer role has transformed. The CFO is at the core of driving the corporate and digital strategy. Moreover, in today’s rapidly changing economy, it is harder than ever to manage the financial activates.
With S/4HANA, we see a great business case for the finance department. The finance platform consists of five integrated pillars to support the CFO financial planning & analysis, accounting & financial closing, treasury management, financial operations, and governance, risk & compliance. However, why one should move to S/4HANA remains a question for many. In this three-part blog, I present perspectives on S/4HANA for finance, and how a move can be beneficial to realize the digital strategy.
S/4HANA comes with a digital core to enable you as a CFO to capitalize on the latest innovations. This includes several deployment options, like the brownfield approach and minimum yearly upgrade with new features; hence, you avoid large software upgrade costs. If you worry about compliance requirements like IFRS16, new releases enable you to stay compliant. You get an ERP-system that is constantly improving. Outside of the digital core, SAP has best-practice solutions that you can integrate with, such as Ariba, to increase procurement efficiency or Concur to simplify travel & expense. In short – giving you the tools to drive efficiency.
A CFO should enhance how the business runs, and machine learning can be a quite effective way of doing this. SAPs Cash Application use machine learning to learn from accountants’ decisions and reconcile bank statements faster. With the GR/IR reconciliation, S/4HANA uses intelligent recommendations that accelerate finance. The system becomes smarter by every transaction. This enables you for example reduce day’s outstanding debt or increase the quality of Accounts Receivable department. Moreover, predictive accounting allows you to simulate effect of business scenarios. You can do proper risk management and, in the uncertainty of today, it is more important than ever to asses risk and effect on decisions or predict the liquidity. With S/4HANA, the finance department have the tools needed to steer safely into the uncertainty of tomorrow.
Read part two of this three-part series to learn more about how S/4HANA can support the CFO office. If you are considering the brownfield approach for migration to S/4HANA, have a look at this blogpost.