Building a Best-Run Finance Organization: A New Role to Address Today's Business Realities Executive

Building a Best-Run Finance Organization
A New Role to Address Today's Business Realities
SAP Executive InsightThere is a company executive with a growing influence in today's boardroom - the chief financial officer. And the role of the finance organizations that these executives lead is expanding as well.
While the advent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has focused enormous attention on the financial accountability and in-ternal controls of companies across all industries, compa-ny executives recognize that individual business activities do not occur in a vacuum. All functions - such as sales, marketing, manufacturing, service, and even human re-sources - affect not only the bottom line but also a com-pany's financial integrity. Increasingly, prudent companies are drawing their finance organizations into greater collab-oration with the operational aspects of the enterprise. Moreover, companies are asking their financial officers to take on a more prominent role in defining company strategy.
This SAP Executive Insight examines the changing role of the finance organization in today's business environment. Further, by answering the following questions, it describes how companies can develop best-run finance organizations:. W hat operating characteristics help companies develop best-run finance organizations?. H ow do you measure a best-run finance organization?. H ow does the focus of an organization change as best-run finance methods are applied?
2 SAP Executive Insight - Building a Best-Run Finance OrganizationEXECUTIVE AGENDA
At a Glance
Recognizing Best-Run Finance Investing in Financial Processes Striking a Balance
Leading companies that are successful in Supporting these success factors are a The best-run finance organization will incorporating finance as a core line of company's internal processes. Top- continue to address near-term priorities business typically display some common performing companies have financial while helping to chart long-term business characteristics. These companies are: processes that are: direction. As a result, the mission of ..Agile. As the economic environment ..Automated. When a transactional pro- today's finance organization is truly both continues to change at an ever- cess is automated, the result is fewer tactical and strategic:increasing pace, there is no time to errors and less effort. With process ..Tactical. Standard financial operations, implement change in small, bite-size reliability, financial professionals can such as month-end close, remain criti-chunks. Centralizing processes - such shift their focus from repetitive and cal to a company's success. Process-as shared financial services, risk analy- manual transactional tasks to more ing financial transactions efficiently and sis, and compliance - can provide con- strategic business analysis. in strict legal compliance solidifies a sistency that enables a company to ..Integrated. Financial processes should company's standing in the financial, implement changes once, quickly be plugged into business processes analyst, and shareholder communities.reaching the entire enterprise. across the enterprise. Organizations ..Strategic. At a time when business ..Connected. No executive - or busi- need to pull down the silos and ensure models are changing rapidly, finance ness function - is an island. Finance, that all relevant financial and operation- plays an increasingly important role in especially, has dependencies on activi- al functions are considered when mak- charting the course of an evolving com-ties in each line of business across the ing critical business decisions. pany. Finance must drive strategy and entire organization. The integration of a ..Consolidated. It is inefficient to imple- innovation - enabling the growth of an company's operations with its financial ment process or regulatory changes organization, facilitating the changes function is a key success factor, foster- that affect an entire organization on a that come with that growth, and manag-ing a common view of the current state system-by-system or subdivision basis. ing risk.and future direction of an organization. A common technical platform can elimi-..Metric driven. Leading companies nate this potentially costly requirement. SAP and the Americas' SAP Users' measure their successes - such as the Group (ASUG) have conducted bench-effectiveness of their transactional... [download for more]