Being a chief financial officer in today’s world of technology is already a role which is proven to be an ever-increasing challenge. Faced with the stresses of managing finances and making crucial financial decisions, CFOs are often confronted with an abundance of stress throughout their day-to-day life.

Though with this new age of technology thoroughly upon us, the CFO’s role is only becoming more and more stressful and they have to adapt and grow every day to stay on the top of their game.

As well as a lot of trends giving CFOs increased stress, some of them are also granting them further abilities and distances, allowing them to reach out across the financial world and explore in greater depth.

Added stress does come with technology changes and advancements, though not all are necessarily bad for the CFO. It can be good, in forcing the current CFO to develop a wider range of skills and competencies.

Some Things That Are Having An Impact

One of the most notable things that are impacting today’s CFOs are platforms which offer regular updates as often as twice or thrice yearly. Platforms which fall under the category of Cloud provide regular updates as mentioned previously, with leading technologies under the Cloud bracket offering as many as four updates a year.

This has an effect on CFOs because instead of having to freshen up their knowledge and become familiar with updates every four or five years as with previous technological platforms, they are now required to get familiar with updated versions far more regularly, resulting in more work and more stress with constant learning curves.

One thing in today’s technological world that can aid a CFO is the broadness of the mobility that they have at their fingertips. It’s this ability to have access to their data or near enough any other data whenever they wish to view it and analyse it.

It grants CFOs with a greater and more in-depth look at their respective market or niche, allowing them to make more accurate financial decisions for their business’s growth. It would aid with investment priorities as they would be provided with a broader range of typically more accurate data on which to base their decisions.

Another positive aspect of having access to mounds and mounds of data would be that CFOs would be able to pay close attention to external information. External Information like trends and tactics in other countries and other businesses – and attempt to apply those strategies to their organisation, coupling it with the internal information that they have already sourced and looked into meticulously.

That does, however, come with a downside to it, as CFOs could become overwhelmed with information if they try to look into too much all at once. This could result in confusion and the over-complication of otherwise simple decisions. Though information is the most valuable asset available to CFOs, it can also pose as just as much a pitfall.

An Important Role

In summary, being a CFO comes with many challenges and downsides, just as any role in technology does. It is a stressful position, to begin with, though in this world of ever-evolving technology and growing trends, they are forced to stay on top of their game.

 Although this can cause much stress and can give them a much harder time, it can also be of a great benefit as they have access to so much more than anyone who has worked in that role previously.

 As in every walk of life: it is all about adapting, learning and evolving to become more efficient and prolific in your respective position. And trends in today’s technological world are most definitely forcing that upon the CFOs of this generation.

LSI Keywords:

• Technology
• CFO
• Finance
• Organisation
• SAP
• Data
• Mobility
• Platform
• Cloud
• Information
• Business
• Systems

As the CFO, your chief concern is the financial health of the business you work with. To remain competitive, you must also be aware of the latest trends in your sector. However, CFO’s may not have the time to maintain a competitive edge in both finance and technology.

This is where the division of labour is relevant. Division of labour is a concept first proposed by Adam Smith in his book “Wealth of Nations” in 1776. The concept of division of labour is centralised on the principle that by dividing tasks into their parts, and subsequently allocating a reduced variety of tasks to individual workers – but a greater volume of these individual tasks – that the speed at which any single process is performed is increased. Thus, the per-worker productivity of each employee is increased.

How does this relate to Systems, applications and products (SAP)? Artificial intelligence (AI) is a strong area of growth in the technological realm. By utilising automated systems for identification of potential problems as well as providing actionable insights, any CFO has a powerful tool for streamlining processes and gaining an edge over competitors.

There is a range of artificial intelligence systems available for customization and application to business processes, allowing human resources to be redirected into more skill-intensive areas. Many people distrust AI due to an inability to understand how they operate. However, the algorithms which AI relies on are significantly more reliable for routine tasks than the humans who make calculations the old-fashioned way.

Since AI is very likely to be here to stay, it follows that people who have a vested interest in such technologies will probably have an important contribution to make to the algorithms which AI relies on. By engaging workers’ perspectives with the development of these algorithms, the usefulness of AI in business can be improved. This will create a more inclusive atmosphere to the field of computer science and by extension, demystify a lot of the misconceptions many people have about it.

What are we to say about the problem of “Robots taking over worker’s jobs”? It is a valid concern that by increasing automation, we are creating a situation whereby people are being made redundant. However, it is not all bad news. As more robots take over the jobs which workers used to do, humans are freed up to pursue those actions which they find more enjoyable.

For example, one could envisage a future where a Father has more time to spend with his children due to the automation of tasks which he used to perform routinely. This is not to say that there will be no place for work in the future: instead, it means that workers can commit to the process of using their creative and imaginative abilities rather than feeling trapped in a job which involves long hours of routine and monotonous tasks which a machine could perform.

If machines perform the routine jobs which workers once did, what of the people who are made redundant? The answer to this lies in the notion that whilst a machine can perform millions of calculations per second, it cannot carry out the task of navigating its environment nearly as well as a human can. And there are countless examples of where people perform a job better than machines.

So, where we previously thought that machines were superior to humans, instead it seems to be the case that by using machines to perform the monotonous jobs that workers used to do, we are freeing up human resources to work on those other jobs which require a more adaptable kind of intelligence. It is important to remember that being competitive does not mean doing what everyone else is doing, but instead making the best use of the tools available.

While a human cannot calculate Pi to a thousand decimal places quickly, a machine can. On the other hand, while a computer cannot perform what is to a human a fairly straightforward task: such as maintaining a natural conversation, many people can do this with ease.

Since the explosion of the internet, almost all people in developed countries have access to a computer. While not everyone is inclined to jump into piles of computer code, there are still significant contributions to be made to algorithms by those workers whose jobs have been largely automated through AI, via, paradoxically, the face-to-face conversations which humans are so much better at.

Keywords

Technology CFO, Finance Technology, Modern CFO skills & competencies, Artificial Intelligence, Financial Health, Division of labor, Automation, Human Resources, Systems applications and products, Productivity

If you are a CFO (Chief Financial Officer), you may not be asking for change and disruption.  However, you need to be prepared for technology to play a significant role in the growing expectations of the job.  Surveys have indicated that executives feel better about finance when they can provide real – time data and consistently – updated predictions.  Cloud, In – Memory Computing, Big Data, Mobile and other technologies can make life easier for CFOs.  The Cloud ERP is a proven technology which is assisting big business to operate more successfully.

Technology Trends to Watch Out for in 2017

The Services Economy Will Be “The Economy” – In 2017 more than half of all businesses will be structured around services – connected revenues.  CFOs will become more occupied with customer approval, retention and rekindling.

Approximately 90{ed162fdde9fdc472551df9f31f04601345edf7e4eff6ea93114402690d8fa616} of companies will acquire more than half their profits from services.

CFOs Get Hands – On with Customer Involvement – Businesses are moving from product and solitary transaction sales to service and subscription models.  CFOs will be forced out of the back office and into ongoing customer – facing roles.  Successful software companies must provide tools that:

• Merge billing sources.
• Sustain and automate new revenue models.
• Give end – to – end discernibility across the customer lifecycle.

Revenue Recognition Will Propel CFO Technology Implementation – CFOs will become more dependent on cloud technology to follow revenue recognition standards.  The IFRS15 and ASC606 standards will motivate the next move of technology improvements and encourage more businesses to move to the cloud.

Clever Assistants Move Out of the Echo Chamber – Strong artificial intelligence and voice recognition enable developers to develop systems that:

• Test the position of project deliverables.
• Manage reports.
• Use simple voice commands to respond to business information.

Atlassian released a HipChat Alexa integration to allow developers to revert to code and tackle issues with websites using voice commands.

Evolution from Reactive to Proactive with the Cloud

Cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) assists companies to consume a computer source such as a virtual machine just like electricity. This negates the necessity of building and maintaining computing bases in – house.

The advantages of single based business platforms are:

• Affordable and quick to implement.
• Easy to manage and operate.
• Sales scales to sustain future growth.
• Adjustment to the firm needs
• Data – rich with inbuilt business intelligence.
• Provision of a united view for total visibility across the firm.

Cloud ERP provides a high return on investment. In a 2015 study, most companies reported an ROI of more than 150{ed162fdde9fdc472551df9f31f04601345edf7e4eff6ea93114402690d8fa616} after changing to the cloud which continues to mature.

Business in 2017 will go through significant changes, and CFOs who adapt will reap the rewards.  In – Memory Technology combines real – time actuals with budgeting and analysis in one integrated system.  Financial data is saved just once which makes almost every facet of commercial operations simpler, faster, more effective and cheaper. You will certainly experience the impact of technology trends which will make your job more enjoyable and improve the overall business prospects.

Primary Keyword – CFO

Secondary Keywords– Technology Trends, Cloud, Technology, In Memory Technology, Revenue Recognition, Businesses, Services Economy, Technology Implementation, Echo Chamber.