Anaplan生活!金融解决了数字化转型中人的一面

In the age of digital transformation, finance finds itself in a unique position of power. As one of the panelists at Anaplan Live! 2022 put it, “transformation goes directly through the finance department” – an acknowledgement of finance’s emerging authority in determining what transformation’s objectives are. It also nods at the idea that finance needs to evolve its partnership with IT and that failure to do so can pose an existential threat to your business.

\n

That sentiment resonated with audience members. “Everything goes through our finance team – so if finance isn’t happy, we have to make some changes,” said Danielle Grooms, senior accounting manager at Greystar and an attendee at Anaplan Live! At her company, finance and IT “both work hand in hand. There’s got to be strong communication between the two. Our IT department has to set us up for success and get that data integration foundation built so our finance team can do what they need to do.”

\n

Finance’s involvement can dramatically alter the perception of transformation, Grooms said. “We just recently became a customer (of Anaplan), and where we were coming from, it was an event,” she said. “Moving forward, we’re having to change our mindset [because transformation is] a process. It’s got to be a continuous thing that goes on within our company. It’s got to be a relationship that’s built upon and stabilized.”

\n

Grooms’ comments – and those of many of the panelists in the finance track – pointed out a critical but frequently overlooked reality of digital transformation. The natural tendency is to view transformation as a technology exercise, but it also represents a test of your organization’s ability to master the human aspects of reinventing your processes.

\n

In fact, one of the sessions was entitled “Transformation is a Journey, Not a Transformation: The Vision for Modern Finance,” spotlighting ServiceNow’s transformation efforts. “Executive alignment is key,” said Hwa Tsao, vice president of strategic finance and FP&A at ServiceNow. “You need a vision. Then you need the sponsorship of the leadership to push the planning as a process. It’s an ongoing journey to get our executive team on the same page: What are our priorities, and what are the types of things we need to rotate everyone around? Then, can we get to a standard process to execute those priorities? It’s a continuous journey. “

\n

“One of the executives at Fidelity said they were going through a once-in-a-lifetime transformation,” said Matt Ku, managing director and TBM practice leader at Deloitte and a panelist in the session “How Fidelity Unlocked Technology Spend Insights to Inform Strategic Business Decision-Making.” “With that comes a lot of change for people needing to understand what their new role is in the overall model. A lot of the hesitancy and push-back is because their jobs are changing. They’re looking at things in a very different way. So the need to support change management was very apparent.”

\n

At the same time, finance can be strategic in how they manage transformation. “Delivering results has a tendency to overcome objections and prime the pump for next steps,” said Matt Engel, head of corporate FP&A at Advance Auto Parts. “Identify use cases that are going to deliver the most value for the business or solve the most pain points, and go after those,” he advised. “For us, that’s helped with change management and adoption has been easier. And the pain points we’ve been able to solve, we’re taking those and asking for a little bit more.”

\n

Every organization wants to see immediate impact but staying focused on steady improvement over time is the only path to success. “It’s a journey, not a sprint,” said Fernando Schreiner, director of FP&A at Gensler. “We are in year six, and we have put together a three-year roadmap for what we want to do next.”

\n

That process-oriented approach allowed Schreiner’s organization to flex its abilities during the pandemic in response to pressures from above. “The board wanted answers from us in FP&A as business partners – but they wanted same-day answers or answers the following morning, not week-to-week answers,” he said. Having already embarked on a transformation journey, his team was up to the challenge. The ability to “make some quick tweaks to the model and answer those quick questions that the board had for us was absolutely priceless,” Schreiner said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to support the board the way we did – and allow them to make data-driven decisions.”

\n

The use of technology to manage the human aspects of transformation is just one of the topics our customer speakers shared at Anaplan Live!

\n"}}" id="text-3a0a3646e1" class="cmp-text">

在数字化转型时代，金融发现自己处于独特的权力地位。作为anplan Live的小组成员之一!2022指出，“转型直接通过财务部门”——承认财务在确定转型目标方面的新兴权威。它还认同这样一种观点，即财务部门需要发展与It部门的合作关系，如果不这样做，可能会对企业的生存构成威胁。

这种情绪引起了观众的共鸣。“所有的事情都要经过我们的财务团队，所以如果财务不满意，我们必须做出一些改变，”Greystar的高级会计经理、anplan Live的与会者丹妮尔·格鲁姆斯(Danielle Grooms)说。在她的公司，财务和IT“都是齐头并进的。两者之间必须有紧密的沟通。我们的IT部门必须为我们的成功做好准备，并建立数据集成基础，这样我们的财务团队才能做他们需要做的事情。”

Grooms说，金融部门的参与可以极大地改变人们对转型的看法。她说:“我们最近才成为(anplan)的客户，对我们来说，这是一件大事。”“展望未来，我们必须改变我们的思维方式，(因为转型是)一个过程。这必须是我们公司内部持续进行的事情。这必须是一种建立在稳定基础上的关系。”

新郎的评论——以及许多小组成员的评论财务跟踪——指出了一个关键但经常被忽视的数字化转型现实。自然的趋势是将转换视为一种技术练习，但它也代表了对您的组织掌握重新发明流程的人力方面的能力的测试。

事实上，其中一个会议的题目是转型是一段旅程，而不是转型:现代金融的愿景聚焦ServiceNow的转型努力。ServiceNow负责战略财务和FP&A的副总裁Hwa Tsao表示:“管理层的协调是关键。“你需要一个愿景。然后你需要领导的支持来推动计划作为一个过程。让我们的管理团队达成一致是一个持续的过程:我们的优先事项是什么，我们需要让每个人都参与哪些类型的事情?然后，我们能得到一个执行这些优先级的标准流程吗?这是一个连续的旅程。”

“富达的一位高管表示，他们正在经历一次千载难逢的转型，”德勤(Deloitte)董事总经理兼TBM业务负责人、会议小组成员顾永明(Matt Ku)表示。富达如何解锁技术支出洞察，为战略业务决策提供信息。“随之而来的是很多变化，人们需要了解他们在整个模型中的新角色。”很多犹豫和退缩都是因为他们的工作发生了变化。他们看待事物的方式非常不同。因此，支持变革管理的必要性非常明显。”

与此同时，财务在如何管理转型方面也具有战略意义。Advance Auto Parts公司FP&A部门主管Matt Engel表示:“提供结果往往会克服反对意见，为下一步做好准备。”他建议:“确定将为业务提供最大价值或解决最大痛点的用例，并追求这些用例。”“对我们来说，这有助于变革管理和采用变得更容易。我们已经能够解决的痛点，我们正在接受这些，并要求更多。”

每个组织都希望看到立竿见影的效果，但随着时间的推移，专注于稳定的改进是通往成功的唯一途径。Gensler的FP&A主管Fernando Schreiner表示:“这是一段旅程，而不是冲刺。”“我们已经进入了第六年，我们已经制定了一个三年的路线图，说明我们下一步要做什么。”

这种以过程为导向的方法使施莱纳所在的组织能够在大流行期间发挥其能力，以应对来自上面的压力。他说:“董事会希望从我们作为商业伙伴的FP&A部门得到答案，但他们希望当天或第二天早上得到答案，而不是每周都得到答案。”他的团队已经开始了转型之旅，他们已经准备好迎接挑战。施莱纳说，“对模型进行一些快速调整，并回答董事会向我们提出的快速问题，这种能力绝对是无价之宝。”“否则，我们就无法像现在这样支持董事会，让他们做出数据驱动的决策。”

使用技术来管理转型的人力方面只是我们的客户演讲者在anplan Live上分享的主题之一!