Strategic Finance: Changes and Challenges for a World Class Finance Organization
Course Overview
One clear lesson of the past few years is that “business as usual” is no longer enough. Change is a constant feature and businesses need to consider how they need to adapt their organizations to develop and maintain their competitive advantage
The global crisis of the pandemic generated a reactive change across all industries – many businesses adopted pivoting strategies to “keep the lights on”, whether that involved introducing remote working programs, developing new routes to market or responding to changes in customer or market behaviors.
But “reactive” change is typically the most stressful – the most pressing on resources across the business and, often, the least successful. There is a need for business to adopt a more “pro-active” response to the changing work arena and to identify strategies to deal with these changes before they arise.
Finance is not exempt from this – indeed, finance transformation initiatives can and should form part of the organizational response to the changing environment.
This leads to key questions for any Finance Leader
•Have we considered the changes which might occur in our environment, and do we have the tools to identify them?
•What are the finance and organizational implications of the ESG objectives?
•How can we become a more Agile leader, team and organization?
•What do we have to do to deliver a World-Class Finance Function?
Key Takeaways
Certifications
Course Outline
Thriving in Chaos
- Envisioning the Future of Finance that Enables Enterprise Growth
- Environmental scanning – identifying the key factors
- Exploring concepts and benefits around Cryptocurrencies and what organizations can do with it
- Dealing with an uncertain and sometimes hostile market
- Incorporating effective Enterprise Risk Management
Agile techniques - Agile Insights for Finance Transformation Success
- Understanding “Agile”
- Developing an Agile mindset in Finance
- Agile trends that will lead the near future
- Building your Agile Finance Strategy
Cash Management
Cautious Optimism: Transitioning from Cash Preservation to a Cash Excellence Culture
- Executing processes with advanced technology like AI and real-time automation
- Managing your organizations cash flow with data-backed decisions
- Optimizing working capital through accounts receivable, accounts payable, and inventory
- Automating cash management processes to uncover strategies that support your organizations objectives
Embracing ESG
- Steering towards Sustainable Finance and Standardizing Sustainability Measures Across the Organization
- Transitioning to a sustainable business model and how the finance function can enable this vital change
- Rethinking the organizations underlying performance model through new accounting frameworks to facilitate the transition
- Quantifying the financial value that is created with investments in sustainability initiatives
- Focusing on reporting systems as a part of the transition to a sustainable enterprise
Creating a World-Class Finance Organization
Five characteristics of A Best-In-Class Finance Function – how does your organization compare?
- Structure
- People
- Process
- Technology
- Measurement
Steps to a World Class Finance function
- Setting the standard for excellence:
- Cross-functional transformation
- A step up in business partnering
- Reaping the real potential of “lean” finance
- Leading-edge people management
- Technology that delivers business benefit and reduced cost
- Turning management information into real competitive intelligence