Digitalization of the Finance Function
- PDF / 154,544 Bytes
- 4 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 101 Downloads / 377 Views
Digitalization of the Finance Function Digitalization has considerably transformed the finance functions of large multinational corporations. As researchers of the Stockholm School of Economics, the authors have been witnessing this transformation for several years and received insights into how companies expect digitalization to affect the finance function in the future. Mats Glader, Torkel Strömsten
The last couple of decades have shown tremendous change with regards to the roles of the finance function and the way different tasks are organized. For instance, transactional accounting was first centralized and later outsourced, often to low cost countries. Also, the controller function was divided into a statutory dimension and a more business-oriented controller function.
Summary
• Even though digitalization has already made the work
and processes of finance functions more efficient, controllers of large multinational corporations often still do not have enough time to act as business partners. • Corporations approach this problem in different ways, for instance, by investing in automation or by using various new digital tools. • The corporations expect that decision making processes will change due to further digitalization in the future, that they will have to become more agile, a cultural change will be needed, and that controllers will require new skills and have to get used to working side by side with robots.
64
We have been following the development of the finance function for several decades as teachers, as researchers and as program directors of an executive education program for senior business and financial controllers in large Nordic multinational corporations. We understand that one of the major challenges the finance function is currently facing is the digital transformation, which many companies embrace as a do-or-die mantra. As a new set of skills is needed and new professions such as that of the data scientist emerge, the profession of the controller is increasingly questioned and challenged. The main question we examine is how the finance function, given its fundamental responsibilities, which we believe cannot change, will maneuver into new domains and into the unknown.
Where do we come from? The basic resource of the finance function is information about the company’s activities in the form of data. Today, much of this data is delivered by enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. However, it is challenging to design an effective ERP system in a large multinational organization with many products and business units. Many of the companies that we talk to struggle to reduce the number of ERPs and to integrate them. The chart of account is a good start, but there is a corresponding need for
Controlling & Management Review 6-7 | 2020
Information & Technologie | Digital Transformation integration in related processes and procedures. Too often we have seen an ERP system driving the strategy and the organization, and not the other way around. Over the years, different hardware and softw
Data Loading...
