The pandemic has accelerated digital finance transformation & automation. Read how CFO’s role in digital transformation can help in navigating economic storm

1. How the CFO can be an effective
partner to the CEO in navigating
the pandemic’s economic storm
V. Ramakrishnan
Formerly Chief Financial Officer,
Tata Consultancy Services
Author

2. 2
CFO-CEO partnership will see off the economic crisis
CFOs are key contributors to an enterprise’s digital transformation.
Despite the pandemic, spends on digital
transformation are expected to grow by 10%
As enterprises battle declining revenues, the
pressure on the finance function has been immense
A strong CFO-CEO partnership can help tackle the digital-economic turbulence.
CFOs must work closely with CEOs to steer their enterprises
through the worst economic crisis in a generation

3. 3
The CFO’s role in a crisis
The risks and responsibilities of a CFO rise during a crisis.
The CFO’s focus areas during a crisis include:
External business risk: Monitor commercial
and business interests, alert and mitigate risk,
and assist in maintaining growth and profits
Talent management:
• Strengthen employee and employer
relationship and engagement
• Ensure pay is sent on time and the
workforce is treated with empathy
• Retain excess staff to boost productivity,
post normalcy
Drive growth:
• Relook at business operations and add new
frameworks and processes
• Analyze and forecast the impact of changes
• Investigate and invest in business opportunities
that align with long-term goals
Smart financial management can bring in organizational agility, which is essential during a crisis.
Accurate forecasting:
• Consider market volatility and maintain
transparency while forecasting
• Manage and mitigate treasury risk to help the
CEO office operate optimally
Mergers and acquisitions: Planned M&As could
present attractive valuations during a crisis, and
divestment of non-core business can generate
funds to meet long-term business goals

4. 4
The CFO and CEO are strategic partners
Digitalization of the finance function can help improve financial and enterprise efficiency.
Highly digitalized finance functions operate more efficiently,
help in strategic decision-making, ensures on-time deliveries,
and reassures stakeholders of smooth operations
Digitalized finance teams can easily identify issues, quickly
address them, manage cost and cash exchange better, and be
more alert to risks to mitigate them in advance
Digitalization of the finance function helps the CEO make better, strategic decisions.

5. 5
How digitalization helped TCS’ finance function
For over two decades, TCS has been investing in digitalizing its finance function for an integrated, enterprise-wide, single-instance
financial accounting and reporting system.
Digitalization has helped TCS’ finance team work remotely and
yet seamlessly manage and deliver per schedule
This experience can be a guide to other industries during similar crises.

6. 6
Lessons in building a powerful digital finance function
Years of experience of digital transformation have helped TCS build a powerful digital finance function that supports a strong,
strategic CFO-CEO partnership.
Here are the four lessons gleaned from TCS’ experiences:
Digitalize the entire finance value chain across all locations. Invest in
technologies to do routine and repeatable jobs and free-up time for
employees to perform more value adding jobs
Non-financial metrics related to financial performance, such as
customer demand, customer satisfaction, project delivery and
employee retention must be identified and tracked
All business units must have dedicated finance professionals to help run
the unit in harmony with the CFO office. These professionals provide
unified data-driven insights, analysis, and communication across the
enterprise
A digital finance function ensures that a single, sacrosanct version of the
truth is shared across the entire value chain. The same data points are
used by different managers to meet different business needs

7. 7
Maximize the digitalized finance function
Enterprises need a fully digital finance function that can be resilient and agile in the face of market volatility.
Digital transformation enables the CFO and C-suite to better
understand, alert, mitigate and manage financial and associated risks
It empowers the CFO and CEO/CXO to reassess and re-strategize
An effective digital transformation needs time, money and adaptability, and needs to be aligned to the organization’s goals.

8. How the CFO can be an effective
partner to the CEO in navigating
the pandemic’s economic storm
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