Only 2% of finance and IT managers say they have a robust strategy for a holistic approach to financial management that relies on the digital landscape and innovative technology, according to the just concluded “CFO and CIO Indicator Study” by Workday Inc, a provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources.
The study, that covered 1,060 finance and IT managers worldwide, cited the lack of alignment between finance and wider business transformation goals as the biggest barrier towards achieving finance transformation.
In Malaysia, companies also face cybersecurity challenges as well as cost and budget issues.
According to Infosys BPM, a provider of integrated outsourcing and transformation services, effectively executed financial transformation could bring several benefits.
They include improved efficiencies, reduced errors, accelerated processes, optimised workforce allocation and tangible financial gains.
The survey showed only 43% of respondents were confident that their finance technologies were agile enough to get through a crisis, while 48% of finance managers in Malaysia said they had been forced to make financial decisions based on gut instincts because the necessary data was not readily available or in the right format.
While it is crucial for businesses to be able to make data-driven decisions quickly, they face several challenges.
For instance, the survey showed, almost 47% of respondents rarely see any alignment between finance and IT on the matter of technology investments.
In fact, in Malaysia, 52% of finance managers believe that their aim to eliminate IT complexity is directly at odds with the expanding scope of finance function.
There also remains a technological gap between finance and IT managers. Almost seven in 10 (65%) respondents said their enterprise resource planning systems were not flexible enough to meet the needs of the day’s business environment while 48% want to see improved finance systems that would enable them to seize new business opportunities within weeks rather than months.
They also cited the need for an increase in cross-functional finance and IT skills to improve synergy between the two sides.
Tan Lee Thong, the practice lead for Asia at Workday, said many organisations continued to face challenges in managing and harnessing the value of vast amounts of data.
“IT and finance managers must work together to deliver on a transformation strategy that leverages on analytics and actionable insights for smarter business decisions in a fast-evolving environment,” he added.