Navigating through covid-19: How to manage your finance function from afar
Since the current health crisis has left the finance function unprepared for what to come, CFOs must digitally transform in order to handle the Corona crisis.
Digitalization and digitalizing work processes have been a main subject within the finance business in recent years. The whole idea behind digitalization is to automate tasks and workflows to make them more efficient.
Making your workflow digital makes your workforce flexible, and it also lets businesses and teams adapt to new, unforeseen situations. The ability to work from home or at flexible hours is needed if you want to create a process that is efficient in the long term. Modern finance functions today need workflows that are agile and transferable to a new everyday life at work, which can occur during a crisis such as COVID-19.
Konsolidator’s “Navigating a Crisis Checklist” talks about how you can work on your business instead of working at your business right now and come out of the COVID-19 crisis stronger.
Digital workflows save time and increase flexibility
The ability to work digitally is something that can strengthen the finance function if you incorporate it into everyday work life. Many digital tools can help the finance function to achieve a digitalization of work processes. Incorporating online software in a group’s IT infrastructure creates more flexible workflows, frees up time for other tasks, and accelerates processes. The mobility and flexibility gained from adopting digital tools ensures that your employees can work normally even though they are not physically present at the office from 9 AM to 5 PM. The ability for employees to work online has proven to be a strategically smart move during crises. Take online meeting software as an example; With software such as Skype or Microsoft Teams, you can facilitate meetings between several people though they are not in the same building, area, or country.
Increased mobility and flexibility of work processes are key advantages of the digital approach. The result, and another core advantage of these improved work processes, is the release of resources. These resources can be devoted to activities such as in-depth financial analysis instead of crunching or double-checking for errors within accounting. Having more resources will ultimately increase the long term efficiency of the finance department.
But what can provide you with both a flexible and efficient workflow while reducing time spent on repetitive, tedious tasks?
One way to create flexible and efficient long-term workflows is by implementing cloud technology as a part of the IT infrastructure in your finance function.
You can read more about the connection between the finance function and the Cloud here.
Companies who have already transitioned to the cloud experience huge advantages because of:
- Easy accessibility and a high level of mobility
- Access to new updates and features automatically
- Low cost
- No long-term binding periods
- A high level of security
If you want to know what to consider before automating your daily workflows, you can find some inspiration in our “Navigating a Crisis Checklist.” We hope it will help you structure the workflows in your finance function, so that you can deliver good results and be as effective and productive as usual during the current health crisis.
