For any transformation journey looking to create synergies and value, it’s important to have your people on board. New ways of working and implementing cultural change should therefore go hand in hand with adopting any new technology. Engagement across Finance – and beyond – is critical to driving that change.
Throughout the transformation process, identifying the affected user groups is key. Organisations need to acknowledge the amount of change users are facing and be clear and consistent in communicating why the change is taking place. This way, each group understands the future benefits of the new way of working. Finance people, like most people, know what they like and like what they know.
Finance functions need to buy into the change rather than resist it. For some, it will completely change their roles and mean learning new ways of doing things. For others, they have the advantage of quicker information to enable decision-making. With our clients, we have been through the peaks and troughs of the change curve and have an arsenal of collateral in our back pockets to help navigate the waves of transformation.
The importance of senior managers and executives buying into change
It is widely considered by the IMF and OECD that one of the critical success factors to any major programme is leadership buy-in and senior stakeholders driving the change. Any transformation journey will struggle to get off the ground without this.
This user group is likely to gain significant benefit from transformation through more reliable and accurate financial reporting; multi-layer scenario planning that utilises cloud-based technology can replace the myriad of spreadsheets being manipulated in their finance teams. Senior Manager and Executive engagement are critical to driving compliance with the new ways of working to ensure benefits are delivered.
Being mindful of employee touchpoints with your Finance system is key to successful engagement
Generally, we find employees do not engage with Finance teams or systems frequently and may not be aware of the downstream impact their activities have across the team.
For example, not every employee or member of staff will be making purchases on behalf of the organisation. If there are supplier catalogues in use, those involved in procurement will quickly understand what they can buy and which suppliers they can use for each type of material or service.
Frequent users of the system understand all this, and the new ways of working can be easily implemented. But education for the infrequent user is equally as important to guarantee successful transformation. A comprehensive change impact assessment helps with communication, training, and support to get these users on board.
Budget Holders: The cog that enables transformation to deliver on its outcomes and benefit
One key objective is for this group to take ownership of the financial results for those areas for which they are responsible. This requires two things to happen: they need the training to understand what is needed of them, and finance professionals need to relinquish ownership. It is only through training and learning by experience that the former can be achieved by this group. SaaS technology has the tools to deliver these objectives but to be fully actualised, the technology needs to be adopted.
What else?
In our upcoming blogs, we will dive deeper into each of the other lenses and outline the learnings of Veran’s finance transformation experts that you can incorporate into your organisation. Next up, we have Process!
If you have any questions and would like to find out more. Please reach out to the Veran marketing team who can put you in touch with one of our Finance Transformation Experts.
We also run regular social, networking and learning events for our Finance Transformation Community, and would love to have you involved. Bookmark this page and check back to see when the next event is happening.