Embracing Technology: How to Be a Tech-Savvy Finance Leader

Technology is changing the way business owners make financial decisions. As a finance leader, you need to think beyond crunching numbers and following hunches when it comes to planning and decision-making. Embracing technology is the key to adapting to the new environment and making the best choices for investment and growth.

According to the latest statistics, the current value of the accounting software market is 16.8 billion, and it is projected to reach 28.1 billion by the next five years. That translates into a whopping growth rate of 9.2%. The same study shows that North America is the largest market for these software solutions. Not keeping pace with this tech trend can deprive your business of a competitive advantage.

For today’s finance leaders, being faster, smarter, and nimbler is no longer optional. You need to use an innovative financial infrastructure, rely on more insightful analyses, and adopt modern metrics to drive business growth. But even as 87% of senior business leaders consider digitalization a priority, adopting the mindset is not easy.

You may feel apprehensive about using tools and metrics rather than your experience and intuition while making major money decisions for your organization. The hard truth is that you must overcome the tech barrier and become a change agent to lead your business in the right direction.

Here are a few actionable tips to become a tech-savvy finance leader:

Explore Your Options

Tech-savvy CFOs think beyond debits and credits, numbers, and spreadsheets. To embrace the right mindset, you need to become a strategist, analyst, and futurist who can modernize business systems to improve productivity and return on investment. Fortunately, there are plenty of options to help you achieve the goal.

You can start with a reliable SaaS accounting software tool to facilitate financial reporting and analysis and centralize performance management. The tool eliminates guesswork from money decisions and makes them metric-driven. Adopting it is a wise move as businesses need to analyze large volumes of data in current times.

According to Facta, CFOs should rely on standardized metrics for better benchmarking and comparisons. Tying them with revenues and expenses is equally crucial to make well-informed investment decisions for your business. Finance leaders can take their companies ahead by choosing the right technologies and tools to empower financial operations and processes. 

Be Agile and Think Long-Term

Adopting the right tools gives you a head start as a tech-savvy finance leader, but you must think long-term to sustain. After all, technology keeps evolving in the short term, so you should be agile enough to pivot fast. Agility and future-proofing keep you on the right track as these mindsets set up your business for success, no matter what the future brings.

Finance leaders are inherently prudent because they weigh the risks and benefits of each move. But being tech-savvy is about acting boldly and leading a change others hesitate. Being an early adopter can create exceptional advantages for your company, so dive in sooner than later.

Prioritize Visibility

Successful leaders can look backward and forward,  foresee the implications of their decisions, and assess business performance clearly. It boils down to the visibility of the financial picture beyond the old-fashioned financial statements. You can use high-value accounting software to create management insights that pick problems and opportunities faster.  

Visibility is also about allowing your team members to dig deeper and uncover new opportunities from a single system of record. Technology takes you and your team beyond spreadsheets and manual systems. It helps you create a reporting system that delivers valuable insights for profitable financial decisions in the long run.

Think Automation

A finance team relying on manual processes fails to deliver fast and actionable results. You may end up needing more people to handle accounting and reporting tasks. The worst part is that they may use bad data and create faulty reports. Automation makes you a future-ready finance leader by breaking the vicious circle of inaccurate data and delayed decisions.

You can also leverage it to streamline repetitive tasks and focus on higher-value, strategic activities. Think automation for key processes such as accounting, record keeping, and report generation to stay on top of strategic leadership. Besides helping you with better decisions, it empowers your business with a productive team. 

Conclusion

Becoming a tech-savvy financial leader is easier than you imagine as you can depend on simple and intuitive tools to adopt innovation. What you actually need is a game plan to modernize reporting and analysis for better business decisions. That’s a great start to achieving the right level of readiness for your business.  An agile and future-focused mindset does the rest.