With a fundamental shift in the CFO mission, the finance function has become a critical change agent across organizations. The role of financial leaders such as CFOs is evolving, from a traditional financial controller, to one that drives performance improvements across the organization.
Building a Code Halo Economy for InsuranceCognizant
By finding meaning in the digital data that accumulates around people, processes, organizations and things, insurers can simultaneously reinvent how they operate and reshape their customers' experience.
Based on a survey of Dutch banking executives, we identify the strengths and weaknesses of payments operating models (including selective outsourcing) in a demanding, highly regulated business sector and recommend a customer-centric model.
Future-Proofing Insurance: Deepening Insights, Reinventing Processes and Resh...Cognizant
Insurance carriers face an imminent sea change in how their mission-critical processes remain efficient, agile and innovative. Ensuring relevance in the future requires redefined business models fueled by heightened productivity across fibusiness as usualfl activities.
2015-16 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey - CPOCapgemini
Capgemini Consulting’s sixth Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Survey examines Procurement Trends, Compliance Management, Advanced Analytics in Procurement, and the Total Supplier Experience. Since our last CPO Survey, much has changed. During the darkest economic hours, Procurement was called upon in many troubled organizations to stem costs in new and creative ways. For many Procurement executives, there was no longer the need to sell the value of its standard services (cutting costs). Instead, Procurement was being called upon as a partner to drive cost out across the organization, thus elevating Procurement executives into a highly visible role in the organization.
The Robot and I: How New Digital Technologies Are Making Smart People and Bus...Cognizant
Our latest study shows that when enterprise robots are applied to automating core business processes, they can extend the creative problem-solving capabilities and productivity of human beings and deliver superior business results.
How Insurers Can Harness Artificial IntelligenceCognizant
Once science fiction, artificial intelligence now holds vast potential for insurers interested in reinventing their business models and transforming customer experience.
Building a Code Halo Economy for InsuranceCognizant
By finding meaning in the digital data that accumulates around people, processes, organizations and things, insurers can simultaneously reinvent how they operate and reshape their customers' experience.
Based on a survey of Dutch banking executives, we identify the strengths and weaknesses of payments operating models (including selective outsourcing) in a demanding, highly regulated business sector and recommend a customer-centric model.
Future-Proofing Insurance: Deepening Insights, Reinventing Processes and Resh...Cognizant
Insurance carriers face an imminent sea change in how their mission-critical processes remain efficient, agile and innovative. Ensuring relevance in the future requires redefined business models fueled by heightened productivity across fibusiness as usualfl activities.
2015-16 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey - CPOCapgemini
Capgemini Consulting’s sixth Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Survey examines Procurement Trends, Compliance Management, Advanced Analytics in Procurement, and the Total Supplier Experience. Since our last CPO Survey, much has changed. During the darkest economic hours, Procurement was called upon in many troubled organizations to stem costs in new and creative ways. For many Procurement executives, there was no longer the need to sell the value of its standard services (cutting costs). Instead, Procurement was being called upon as a partner to drive cost out across the organization, thus elevating Procurement executives into a highly visible role in the organization.
The Robot and I: How New Digital Technologies Are Making Smart People and Bus...Cognizant
Our latest study shows that when enterprise robots are applied to automating core business processes, they can extend the creative problem-solving capabilities and productivity of human beings and deliver superior business results.
How Insurers Can Harness Artificial IntelligenceCognizant
Once science fiction, artificial intelligence now holds vast potential for insurers interested in reinventing their business models and transforming customer experience.
Digital Marketing in Banking: Evolution and RevolutionCognizant
Proving the effectiveness of bank marketing strategies beyond brand-building has always been a challenge. Now, several converging forces may help propel marketing forward as a revenue source rather than a cost center.
CMOs & CIOs: Aligning Marketing & IT to Elevate the Customer ExperienceCognizant
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How Semantic Analytics Delivers Faster, Easier Business InsightsCognizant
Facing vast and increasing amounts of data, business users need analytic capabilities to handle the volume and derive meaningful insights based on expert knowledge. Semantic analytics applies metadata and metaknowledge principles to extract actionable answers to complex business questions and detect previously unknown patterns.
Property & Casualty Commercial Lines Underwriting: The New PlaybookCognizant
P&C commercial lines carriers are experiencing a global transformation that will compel them to reexamine their operating models, implement direct-to-consumer strategies, reengineer their processes and technologies, and achieve and sustain profitable growth in the age of digital.
Apps for the Connected World: Supercharge Customer Data with Code HalosCognizant
By making meaning from the data that swirls around every digital interaction, companies can gain unprecedented insight into what customer and prospects want and value, essentially what makes them "tick."
Internet of Things: From Strategy to Action: Driving IoT to Industrial ScaleCognizant
Full IoT value cannot be realized by connecting a few devices. Organizations need to get beyond instrumentation, and focus on the impact these technologies can have on their business strategies, which will require leadership, vision and partnership.
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Equipping IT to Deliver Faster, More Flexible Service ManagementCognizant
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By delving deeply into customer experience, business process design and operating model change, organizations can more effectively move from 'doing' digital to 'being’ digital.
Many insurers have set out on the journey of robotic process automation. In most cases, this has meant running pilots on simple business processes before scaling up to deliver more material benefits through an industrialized automation capability. Our experience shows that a holistic and integrated approach to these implementations is essential.
How Insurers Can Leverage Social and Messaging Apps to Enhance Digital ValueCognizant
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Life sciences companies can avoid unnecessary risks and common sources of cost escalation by optimizing and centralizing the management of their promotional material references.
Ericka pionin digital transformation – definedEricka Pionin
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An Analysis of U.S. P&C Insurance Customer-Facing Mobile AppsCognizant
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Consumer trust has become the new battleground for digital success. To win, organizations need to master the fundamentals of data ethics, manage the "give-to-get" ratio and solve the customer trust equation, our recent research reveals.
Top 8 digital transformation trends shaping 2021run_frictionless
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https://runfrictionless.com/b2b-white-paper-service/
Making Life Easier for Investigators: A Shared Solution for Smarter, Faster C...Cognizant
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The Business Case for On-Demand Test ServicesCognizant
On-demand services offer a superior alternative to traditional QA service delivery models by providing a pay-per-use approach and enabling greater operational agility.
Transforming Manufacturing with the Internet of ThingsCognizant
We are entering a golden age for innovation in manufacturing products and processes, all enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT). This IDC market spotlight can help you understand the approach you will have to follow to derive value some of the considerations for driving value from connected products, connected supply chains, smart manufacturing and IoT.
Digital Marketing in Banking: Evolution and RevolutionCognizant
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In the digital sphere, customer behaviors, organizational structures and entire business models are rapidly changing, compelling CIOs and CMOs to collaborate closely and often, and focus on the common goal of delivering consistent and exceptional customer experiences from day one.
How Semantic Analytics Delivers Faster, Easier Business InsightsCognizant
Facing vast and increasing amounts of data, business users need analytic capabilities to handle the volume and derive meaningful insights based on expert knowledge. Semantic analytics applies metadata and metaknowledge principles to extract actionable answers to complex business questions and detect previously unknown patterns.
Property & Casualty Commercial Lines Underwriting: The New PlaybookCognizant
P&C commercial lines carriers are experiencing a global transformation that will compel them to reexamine their operating models, implement direct-to-consumer strategies, reengineer their processes and technologies, and achieve and sustain profitable growth in the age of digital.
Apps for the Connected World: Supercharge Customer Data with Code HalosCognizant
By making meaning from the data that swirls around every digital interaction, companies can gain unprecedented insight into what customer and prospects want and value, essentially what makes them "tick."
Internet of Things: From Strategy to Action: Driving IoT to Industrial ScaleCognizant
Full IoT value cannot be realized by connecting a few devices. Organizations need to get beyond instrumentation, and focus on the impact these technologies can have on their business strategies, which will require leadership, vision and partnership.
People — Not Just Machines — Will Power Digital InnovationCognizant
As new technologies cause value chains to rapidly evolve and organizational boundaries to blur, human roles and tasks are also digitizing, as machines alter how knowledge work is performed.
Equipping IT to Deliver Faster, More Flexible Service ManagementCognizant
IT must apply new strategies and tools to the service management function, in order to address fundamental changes in how end-users consume technology and services. Here's how IT can increase service delivery speeds and user satisfaction, while delivering greater business value.
North American Utility Sparks Up its Complaint Handling SystemCognizant
Electric utility's new complaint handling system reduces resolution times, increases staff productivity, boosts customer satisfaction and improves regulatory compliance.
How Digital Is Quickly Reshaping Customer Experience ProcessesCognizant
By invoking six strategies that reimagine the power of customer support processes, digitally-savvy companies can create unprecedented levels of new business value and significantly elevate customer experience.
By delving deeply into customer experience, business process design and operating model change, organizations can more effectively move from 'doing' digital to 'being’ digital.
Many insurers have set out on the journey of robotic process automation. In most cases, this has meant running pilots on simple business processes before scaling up to deliver more material benefits through an industrialized automation capability. Our experience shows that a holistic and integrated approach to these implementations is essential.
How Insurers Can Leverage Social and Messaging Apps to Enhance Digital ValueCognizant
Insurance carriers looking to bolster their digital ROI and reach their clientele of millennials most effectively must look beyond mobile apps and online portals, into social and messaging apps. We offer a roadmap and use cases for enhancing insurers' digital presence.
Life sciences companies can avoid unnecessary risks and common sources of cost escalation by optimizing and centralizing the management of their promotional material references.
Ericka pionin digital transformation – definedEricka Pionin
Digital Transformation – Defined
To be successful, companies must focus on customer experience and to remain sustainable, they must invest in digital technology.
An Analysis of U.S. P&C Insurance Customer-Facing Mobile AppsCognizant
Property and casualty insurers are playing catch-up in the mobile app space, with most failing to deliver features and functionality that meet consumer needs and expectations, or matching the capabilities provided on existing Web portals, our latest research shows.
How Pharma Can Fully Digitize Interactions with Healthcare ProfessionalsCognizant
By building end-to-end IT ecosystems and understanding preferred communications channels, pharmaceuticals companies can create more engaging and fruitful digital relationships with healthcare professionals.
Consumer trust has become the new battleground for digital success. To win, organizations need to master the fundamentals of data ethics, manage the "give-to-get" ratio and solve the customer trust equation, our recent research reveals.
Top 8 digital transformation trends shaping 2021run_frictionless
In a world that’s increasingly dependent on digital, IT’s role is more critical than ever. To meet rising demands, organizations are accelerating their digital transformation. This report identifies the top 8 technology trends that will face CIOs, IT leaders, and organizations in their digital transformation journey in 2021.
https://runfrictionless.com/b2b-white-paper-service/
Making Life Easier for Investigators: A Shared Solution for Smarter, Faster C...Cognizant
The industry's Shared Investigator Platform significantly reduces the time and cost of clinical trials, simplifying work for investigators and bringing promising therapies to market more quickly.
The Business Case for On-Demand Test ServicesCognizant
On-demand services offer a superior alternative to traditional QA service delivery models by providing a pay-per-use approach and enabling greater operational agility.
Transforming Manufacturing with the Internet of ThingsCognizant
We are entering a golden age for innovation in manufacturing products and processes, all enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT). This IDC market spotlight can help you understand the approach you will have to follow to derive value some of the considerations for driving value from connected products, connected supply chains, smart manufacturing and IoT.
Sliding Oil Prices: Predicament or ProspectCognizant
Given the steep plunge in crude oil prices and resulting cash crunch, now is the perfect time for oil and gas companies to revisit their value tree and synchronize business and IT strategies.
With iOS 8, Apple has built on the new IT model for a mobile workforce. Here is a quick guide for the enterprise on how iOS 8 may impact mobile initiatives.
Why Your Best Salesperson May Be a Customer Support RepCognizant
Using rich data, powerful analytics and integrated toolsets, support organizations in the communications and technology industry can achieve a real-time understanding of customer challenges, enabling them to convert troubleshooting exercises into rewarding experiences and convert customers into brand ambassadors.
Transcending the Hype: A Transformative IoT EmergesCognizant
The Internet of Things is finally taking shape. Here’s a glimpse at how a few initial pilots are increasing productivity, improving the customer experience and altering the competitive landscape.
A Next-Generation Approach to Integrated Warranty ManagementCognizant
For today's manufacturers, warranty management is one of the most tangible customer-facing functions. A next-generation, closed-loop warranty system can help companies automate and integrate warranty-related data to enhance field service and improve the management of returns, repairs and claims.
Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of "Mobile Me"Cognizant
Advancements in mobile technologies are impacting nearly every aspect of the retail industry. As our research confirms, retailers can no longer treat individuals and market segments as one homogenous entity. Winning in mobile commerce will depend on companies' ability to capture and analyze optimum, real-time data from digital, physical and personal sources, and deliver highly personalized, contextually relevant experiences to today's "markets of one."
Customer Experience Management: The New Playbook for Indian Manufacturing Org...Cognizant
In an era of fraying customer loyalty and tightening competition in the Indian market, manufacturers need a well-defined customer experience management strategy to enhance customer satisfaction and consequently, revenues.
Real-World Evidence: A Better Life Journey for Pharmas, Payers and PatientsCognizant
Driven partly by regulatory pressure, stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem—including payers and patients—now want real-world evidence (RWE) about wellness to supplement and expand randomized control trial (RCT) input from pharmas about pharmaceuticals' efficacy and effectiveness.
Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting an Outsourced Testing Service Provider 2014–15Cognizant
Cognizant has been recognized as “Market Leader” in Ovum Decision Matrix on Outsourced Testing Service Providers. According to the report, Cognizant stands out for how it articulates the implications of end-to-end responsibility and aligns them with organizational issues around testing services.
The Case for Mobility: How New-Age Utilities Can Energize Operations and Boos...Cognizant
For utilities feeling the pinch, mobility offers a vast array of potential increased efficiencies and customer service activities. We outline a multi-stage path to become a mobility-enabled utility enterprise.
Using Predictive Analytics to Optimize Asset Maintenance in the Utilities Ind...Cognizant
Predictive analytics is a process of using statistical and data mining techniques to analyze historic and current data sets, create rules and predict future events. This paper outlines a game plan for effective implementation of predictive analytics.
Synergizing Master Data Management and Big DataCognizant
Master data management (MDM) is key to organizing, standardizing and linking volumes of big data that characterize today's information-driven environments. Understanding how MDM and big data inform and complement one another can offer organizations deeper, more actionable insights and a "single version of the truth" to support better decisions and realize new competitive advantages.
The "Retailification" of the Car Rental IndustryCognizant
Rental cars are on the verge of becoming commodities. To overcome this issue, car rental companies can look to the best practices of the retail industry and use their own channels to offer customers a value-rich, rewarding and consistent experience at every touch point, supported by a "mobile first" omni-channel strategy.
“CFOs will shift from their traditional role as administration and finance
experts, with technical skills based on administration, management
control, cash-flow management, and financial planning
The new ‘A and B’ of the Finance Function: Analytics and Big Data - -Evolutio...Balaji Venkat Chellam Iyer
Published in 2013, this White Paper discusses how the finance function would evolve with the combined forces of Big Data and Analytics and the levers that could help catalyze the change and has drawn upon the Global Trend Study conducted by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on how companies were investing in Big Data and deriving returns from it.
Organisations spend heavily on technology, people skills and consulting to understand billions of bits of data, but they still lack clear visibility and insight.....
Enterprise Fusion: Your Pathway To A Better Customer ExperienceCognizant
In June 2018, Cognizant commissioned Forrester Consulting to test the hypothesis that digital transformation will succeed best when two conditions are met.
Based on responses from 548 enterprise Finance leaders across Europe and Southeast Asia, our free report sets out the key development initiatives and investment needs for the coming years.
The difficult art of quantifying return on digital investmentsBen Gilchriest
Measuring digital investments is proving to be a challenging task. Many companies have tried to create models that demonstrate the value of digital technologies, such as social media, applying traditional metrics to these. However, it's proving to be difficult to find a credible method.
So how do we make the difficult decision on where to invest in digital; especially when we are under so much pressure to do so much more? Whilst we need some sort of mechanism in place to make informed choices, traditional approaches to ROI are falling short. This paper describes these challenges in more detail (you are not alone, even amongst the world's leading digital companies, the 'Digirati', only 56% create a business case). It also describes three approaches you can take to define a digital business case, and provides perspectives on how to best approach digital investment decisions.
We’ve worked with Executives and IT leaders for over 30 years, and the single most common complaint we hear from them is their profound frustration with the lack of results and transparency from their never-ending IT investments.
To add further complexity, the demand for digital products and services has made it increasingly difficult for organizations to make ongoing investments and balance the need for innovation with optimization.
The latest data, combined from global enterprises, big consulting and research firms, makes the case that companies need to urgently act to address the digital disruption of their business and their related skills gaps. The data shows that 70% of digital business initiatives are likely to fail to deliver business growth, due to lack of business process and product innovation, as well as poor organizational adaptability.
Poor governance and legacy product management processes to align business and IT initiatives, coupled with insufficient leadership engagement across the organization, are the main reason most companies are wasting money on IT.
This thought paper speaks to these challenges and how optimizing both technology innovation and cross-organizational engagement will accelerate the positive business outcomes that organizations are looking to achieve especially in lieu of increasing digital disruption.
Authors - Alex Adamopoulos and Bob Kantor
Chief Financial Officers time to shift focusNeil Holmes
How do today’s CFOs prepare to take on the increasingly broad range of demands placed upon them?
Think about it … formative professional training remains focussed largely on auditing company performance, checking results are reported in accordance with the latest technical guidance and ensuring that the business meets regulatory requirements. And whilst keeping abreast of the numbers is still regarded as a key responsibility of the Finance team, in an increasingly digitised economy Boards are demanding that the CFO also provides greater analysis of what the numbers imply, supporting the business to meet its strategic goals.
The potential to automate and outsource control and governance procedures could arguably lead to these skills becoming a commodity, with the CFO increasingly expected to devote more time to ‘being on the pitch’, supporting the Chief Executive in leading the drive for growth, change and transformation. Blockchain technology and the rise of Artificial Intelligence could revolutionise not only the automation of transactional processes but also the ability to transform corporate reporting, enabling transactions to be recorded and reported in real time.
But these changes will have a profound impact on not only the traditional career trajectory of finance professionals, but on the skills and expertise that the finance function will need to deploy, including talent with significant data and digital expertise. It’s no longer enough for Finance leaders to oversee a team that assimilates and reports information, but instead, they must develop the capability to identify, interpret and communicate the most valuable data, in the right language, at the right time.
The proliferation of data and analysis means little if the capacity to derive relevance from it is absent. With an accelerating shift in focus of today’s CFO away from control and governance towards the increasing use of analytics and business partnering, the CFO has an enhanced role in shaping the company’s future rather than reporting on the past.
In our latest CFO paper ‘Time to shift focus’, we explore the three main areas of influence where a CFO’s impact on a business is felt most.”
The accounting profession has felt the impact of change. Over the past several years, operational changes in workflow and process have dramatically altered the scope of the accountant’s role. The profession’s workforce is aging, underlining the importance of succession planning and talent management. Additionally, as the digital universe doubles in size every other year, many firms struggle to keep pace with the latest technology trends.
For today’s firm, change is constant. And across the entire tax, accounting and audit profession, the forecast calls for even greater shifts in people, processes and technology.
These ever-evolving realities inspired Wolters Kluwer, CCH, a strategic partner to accounting firms, to explore two major questions in the 2014 Wolters Kluwer, CCH — Accounting Firm Preparedness Survey.
Using Adaptive Scrum to Tame Process Reverse Engineering in Data Analytics Pr...Cognizant
Organizations rely on analytics to make intelligent decisions and improve business performance, which sometimes requires reproducing business processes from a legacy application to a digital-native state to reduce the functional, technical and operational debts. Adaptive Scrum can reduce the complexity of the reproduction process iteratively as well as provide transparency in data analytics porojects.
It Takes an Ecosystem: How Technology Companies Deliver Exceptional ExperiencesCognizant
Experience is evolving into a strategy that reaches across technology companies. We offer guidance on the rise of experience and its role in business modernization, with details on how orgnizations can build the ecosystem to support it.
The Work Ahead: Transportation and Logistics Delivering on the Digital-Physic...Cognizant
The T&L industry appears poised to accelerate its long-overdue modernization drive, as the pandemic spurs an increased need for agility and resilience, according to our study.
Enhancing Desirability: Five Considerations for Winning Digital InitiativesCognizant
To be a modern digital business in the post-COVID era, organizations must be fanatical about the experiences they deliver to an increasingly savvy and expectant user community. Getting there requires a mastery of human-design thinking, compelling user interface and interaction design, and a focus on functional and nonfunctional capabilities that drive business differentiation and results.
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
The Work Ahead in Higher Education: Repaving the Road for the Employees of To...Cognizant
Higher-ed institutions expect pandemic-driven disruption to continue, especially as hyperconnectivity, analytics and AI drive personalized education models over the lifetime of the learner, according to our recent research.
Engineering the Next-Gen Digital Claims Organisation for Australian General I...Cognizant
In recent years, insurers have invested in technology platforms and process improvements to improve
claims outcomes. Leaders will build on this foundation across the claims landscape, spanning experience,
operations, customer service and the overall supply chain with market-differentiating capabilities to
achieve sustainable results.
Profitability in the Direct-to-Consumer Marketplace: A Playbook for Media and...Cognizant
Amid constant change, industry leaders need an upgraded IT infrastructure capable of adapting to audience expectations while proactively anticipating ever-evolving business requirements.
Green Rush: The Economic Imperative for SustainabilityCognizant
Green business is good business, according to our recent research, whether for companies monetizing tech tools used for sustainability or for those that see the impact of these initiatives on business goals.
Policy Administration Modernization: Four Paths for InsurersCognizant
The pivot to digital is fraught with numerous obstacles but with proper planning and execution, legacy carriers can update their core systems and keep pace with the competition, while proactively addressing customer needs.
The Work Ahead in Utilities: Powering a Sustainable Future with DigitalCognizant
Utilities are starting to adopt digital technologies to eliminate slow processes, elevate customer experience and boost sustainability, according to our recent study.
AI in Media & Entertainment: Starting the Journey to ValueCognizant
Up to now, the global media & entertainment industry (M&E) has been lagging most other sectors in its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). But our research shows that M&E companies are set to close the gap over the coming three years, as they ramp up their investments in AI and reap rising returns. The first steps? Getting a firm grip on data – the foundation of any successful AI strategy – and balancing technology spend with investments in AI skills.
Operations Workforce Management: A Data-Informed, Digital-First ApproachCognizant
As #WorkFromAnywhere becomes the rule rather than the exception, organizations face an important question: How can they increase their digital quotient to engage and enable a remote operations workforce to work collaboratively to deliver onclient requirements and contractual commitments?
Five Priorities for Quality Engineering When Taking Banking to the CloudCognizant
As banks move to cloud-based banking platforms for lower costs and greater agility, they must seamlessly integrate technologies and workflows while ensuring security, performance and an enhanced user experience. Here are five ways cloud-focused quality assurance helps banks maximize the benefits.
Getting Ahead With AI: How APAC Companies Replicate Success by Remaining FocusedCognizant
Changing market dynamics are propelling Asia-Pacific businesses to take a highly disciplined and focused approach to ensuring that their AI initiatives rapidly scale and quickly generate heightened business impact.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...Cognizant
Intelligent automation continues to be a top driver of the future of work, according to our recent study. To reap the full advantages, businesses need to move from isolated to widespread deployment.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...
Revitalizing Finance
1. Revitalizing Finance
To drive improved business outcomes, the role of
the CFO must evolve beyond traditional control and
accounting to propel change that focuses on creating
organizational value.
2. 2 KEEP CHALLENGING February 20152 KEEP CHALLENGING February 2015
Executive Summary
New technologies and business models provide an immediate
opportunity for CFOs to increase their influence and enhance business
outcomes.
Finance has long been at the vanguard of new technologies and
services. However, finance’s primary role of “bean counter” has hindered
its ability to embrace next-generation strategies that have transformed
customer-facing functions through industry. That’s changing — fast.
New opportunities and business models are evolving as many companies
grapple with the torrents of data around people, processes, businesses
and products that are now available — data that we call Code Halos.1
These forces are reverberating through all levels of the enterprise,
changing job roles and functions. They are driving the need for leaders
who have a vision and ability to execute new operating models and
create competitive advantage.
With a fundamental shift in the CFO mission, the finance function
has become a critical change agent across organizations. It is no
longer enough to have a grip on financial reporting, compliance and
capital management; the CFO is expected to have a vision for driving
performance improvements across the organization and enable better
business partnership to support innovation in products, services and
markets.
The primary changes in CFO priorities include:
• Drive organizational efficiency. There remains, of course, a strong
element of financial control in any CFO’s assessment of his role —
according to Ovum,2
60% of CFOs say that driving efficiencies is
the main strategic aim of their department. But the CFO’s influence
spreads far beyond the finance function.
3. THE SOCIAL MEDIA MANDATE FOR THE HOTEL INDUSTRY 3REVITALIZING FINANCE 3
• Participate in decisions related to technology and talent adoption.
According to a survey by Consero,3
more than 90% of finance
leaders take an active decision-making role in buying IT. A similar
proportion are involved in senior level and strategic hiring within
their organizations.
• Set corporate goals and strategy. The same Consero study also
indicates that a large majority (81%) of organizations view the
finance function as a strategic business partner, rather than purely
a cost, budget and forecasting function. The CFO Alliance, a global
community of finance leaders,4
reports that 56% of CFOs believe they
have more involvement in setting corporate strategy and direction
and creating long-term shareholder value than ever before.
A clear picture is emerging. The role of CFO is evolving, from traditional
financial controller, to one that drives performance improvements across
the organization. And CFOs across industries are about to see a sweeping
change in the tools, techniques and operating models that enable that
evolution.
4. Demographics and Demand Drive Change
Role changes are merely the tip of the disruptions ahead to which CFOs must adjust. Businesses
are being reshaped by a quickly shifting technology landscape. The emergence of social, mobile,
analytic and cloud — the SMAC StackTM
— is creating new and valuable sources of business informa-
tion, ways to interpret data and the means to do so cost-effectively. Every action in the digital world
— every click, swipe, “like,” buy, post and tweet — leaves a digital footprint. We call the aggregate of
such data a Code Halo.TM
Winning businesses, as recent digital history has shown, are those that can
extract meaning from Code Halo intersections. The insight they provide into the behavior of people,
processes and objects informs new business models. Your organization can use this knowledge to
outperform competitors by anticipating customer wants and need, before they are even articulated.
There are huge shifts too in the way organizations work that are brought about by digital-savvy
employees and customers. Organizations are embracing more collaborative, flexible and global
approaches.
Consumer-led technology and demands around social technology and interactions are changing
every assumption ever held about business. The millennial (and burgeoning “Gen Z”) generation
represents a profoundly digitally-fueled consumer demographic, with “digital native” character-
istics that also extend to their behaviors and beliefs as employees. They fully expect anytime,
anywhere interaction, and easy access to information.
This creates both opportunity and challenge for CFOs, impacting their budgets and their tradi-
tional outlooks on R&D and innovation. CFOs need to respond quickly and confidently to these
changes, before consumers and prospective employees look to other companies that can meet
— and exceed — their expectations.
In today’s data-rich and fast-changing environment, CFOs who fail to take the opportunity to
make meaning from Code Halos risk sliding into the corporate periphery, becoming a mere
financial check and balance for more dynamic leaders.
Our newly published survey of more than 500 senior executives (see Figure 1 for a small sample
of its results) illustrates how organizations that have implemented digital strategy are ahead
of others on cost management and revenue generation parameters. Organizations need to do
4 KEEP CHALLENGING February 2015
How Digital Impacts Business Process Change
Source: Cognizant “Robot and I” study.
Response base: 537 European and North American business executives.
Figure 1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
33%
44%
21%
24%
59%
67%
35% 32%
In 12-24 months
In 3-5 years
Respondents who believe
F&A processes will be
automated.
Respondents who believe there will
be greater than 25% reduction in
FTEs as a result of automation.
Those who foresee greater
than 10% reduction in costs
as a result of automation.
Executives who believe
F&A will be “context” to
business in the future.
5. REVITALIZING FINANCE 5
much more than articulate an intention to modernize their operations. The results are there
to see; leaders that have implemented some form of process automation see a reduction on
FTEs needed to run their shared services and process operations. One in five companies in our
survey had already seen a reduction of 25% of their FTEs across their supply chain, HR and F&A
functions.
Beyond Data, Leaders Need Insight
The finance department is the custodian of data needed for investment decisions and cost
management. Data is the foundation of effective business transformation, innovation and
growth. The powerful insights it provides are tightly coupled with the financial health of the
business.
It’s clear that finance, more than any other function, has the ability to measure and manage
corporate performance, promote metrics and data awareness across the organization and use
early indicators to spot and avoid the huge damage that “black swan” events can cause.
Our own research, “The Value of Signal (and the Cost of Noise),”5
showed that, on average,
companies that use business analytics report an 8.4% increase in revenues. In the 21st century,
where big data analytics is the new oil that drives business performance, the finance function is
in the right place at the right time to fuel this growth.
Today’s Finance Operating Model: Competing on Code
With finance focused on a new role — one centered on strategic business partnership, organi-
zational efficiency, business agility and insight — organizations need a robust operating model.
For example, how quickly can the finance function adapt to new demands across the business,
such as requests to increase budgets for growth in newer markets or investments in creating
new products or reacting to a competitor? Are your people, processes and technology helping,
hindering or, worse, injecting risk into the process and by extension the business at large?
Unless the finance department gets its core functions to run smoothly, there’s little scope for
taking on more strategic responsibilities. How much of your time, head count and budget is spent
on manual, routine, transactional tasks, like general ledger accounting/processing and accounts
payable, instead of planning and analysis? A survey from KPMG6
found that more than 40% of
businesses have payroll, accounts payable and receivable and transactional purchasing in-house
— rather than via shared-services, offshore or sourced models.
This clearly leaves many companies with opportunities to leverage sourcing strategies and digi-
tally-fueled process automation to reduce costs and free up time for other initiatives. And even
if your organization has already sourced certain functions, it needs to know if it can possibly do
it better, augment the scope or look further down range at how changes in approach can yield a
more meaningful result.
The finance function has always relied on data, but there’s an opportunity to do much more.
Finance can harness the explosion in the volume and variety of data sources and the power of
analytic engines to turn raw operational data into actionable intelligence, driving key knowledge-
based initiatives.
We recommend your organization consider the following finance-related questions to identify
top priorities:
• Is the function measured and rewarded for the shareholder value you deliver, or for the cost
of what you do?
• Are processes currently scoped or paid for based on the number of people delivering the
process, or by outcomes?
6. 6 KEEP CHALLENGING February 2015
• Is your organization maximizing the potential of technologies in its processes?
• How can changes in operating models capitalize innovations and investments in new technolo-
gies?
• Does your organization have access to best-of-breed financial support and specialist advice?
• Does your organization have access to data analytics to inform and drive business decisions?
Strategizing … Not Firefighting
For all their business confidence, few CFOs are sanguine about their answers to the questions
above — and whether they’re equipped with the right insights and foresight to make the most of
market opportunities.
Dealing with legacy problems consumes a disproportionate amount of time, and prevents CFOs
and CIOs from focusing their attention on exploiting innovative technologies that can help
improve competitiveness and drive growth. In short, they’re spending too much time fighting
fires.
These problems are not new. Many organizations turned to shared services to tackle these very
issues — by simultaneously introducing standardization and improving cross-functional data
sharing. But shared services haven’t solved the problem. They too have been disrupted by shifts
in technology, new market dynamics and the pressure to innovate. Too often, performance is
deemed inadequate (see Figure 2).7
But inertia is not an option. Our “New Process Genome” study showed that enterprises recognize
the danger of maintaining the status quo: they reported that 73% of their core business
processes will need modernizing in the next three years.8
This in turn creates challenges, with
the ongoing tension between the economies of standardized processes and the demand for
process innovation.
In short, companies need to run better and run differently — concurrently. Given this dual
mandate, the ramifications for the finance function are profound. How to reduce turnaround
Shared Services Execution is Formidable, Though Process Degradation Persists
Q: Which of the following could contribute to process degradation?
Source: Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work; Cognizant and Nelson Hall
Figure 2
Shared Services Execution is Formidable, Though Process Degradation Persists
Q: Which of the following could contribute to process degradation?
Source: Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work; Cognizant and Nelson Hall
Figure 2
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 0 1 2 3 4 5
Inadequate Tools
Outdated Approach
Non-standardized
Too Costly
Poor Quality
Percent of process degradation
(Response base: 242 business decision-makers)
Aggregate satisfaction score
(Response base: 47 European shared service centers, Q4 2012)
Dissatisfied Satisfied
Tools
Business leaders know the problems … … and so do their shared services counterparts.
Areasmeasuredforsatisfaction
Contributorstoprocessdegradation
Operations
Capability
Process Approach
Process Coverage
Tools
nnssfafa
PProccess AApproach
for
Processs Coverage
seek process flexibility and value-based thinking, leaders in shared services can
often make the following mistakes:
• Focus on the value of shared services solely as a function of cost. Stakehold-
7. REVITALIZING FINANCE 7
times and thus slash day’s sales outstanding? How to capitalize supplier discounts? How could
innovation in accounts receivable leverage developments as simple as bill presentation and
payment? Where are the innovative new channels for customers that create up-selling/cross-
selling opportunities and yield powerful customer insights?
Facing the strains of the dual mandate — to do more with less; to cut costs and to produce growth;
to optimize operations within finance and to help the whole business — CFOs need a new approach.
We propose that a new vision for the CFO’s functions demands a new operating model: changing
the way finance sources capabilities, partners with providers and delivers technology to its teams.
Finance’s New Operating Model
Figure 3 depicts a new operating model for finance that transforms the way the function works
within the business — where tasks are assigned, how performance is measured and who is
responsible for each set of tasks.
Transforming Finance
Figure 3
Elements Traditional Today
Approach to
Transformation
• Finance transformation as a
project.
Steady pace of continuous renewal — modernization of the
finance function through:
• Meaning-making through integrated analytics: risk
management and predictive and operational metrics.
• Enabling technologies: integrated platforms to provide a
common view of the organization.
• Intelligent automation: straight-through processing for greater
agility, accuracy and speed-to-market.
• Agile processes: providing businesses the needed agility to
expand.
• Modernizing the enterprise information platform: driving data
accuracy and global reporting and compliance harmonization.
Sourcing
Strategy
• Shared services versus business
process services (BPS) decision
approach.
• Transactional finance and
accounting.
• Split of finance functions across
shared services or BPS and
internal employees.
• Asset-light hybrid models optimized for capability and cost.
• Consolidate or source end-to-end functions, allowing for
process automation, technology upgrade, business process as
a service (BPaaS) platforms and a utility- based pricing model.
Sourcing
Locations
• Focus on offshore. • Increased onshore BPS presence via rebadging (asset moneti-
zation); location decisions balance capability with costs.
• Regional shared services model
(captive or sourced).
• Global models with captive centers of excellence and sourced
transactional processes.
Sourcing
Commercial Models
• FTE-based or output-based. • Outcome-based or utility-based models.
Approach to IT
Investments
• Maximize return on investment
in enterprise resource planning
(ERP) systems.
• Asset-light IT approaches with emphasis on platform solutions.
8. 8 KEEP CHALLENGING February 2015
This represents a huge change that will impact both the finance function and the wider orga-
nization. It will affect in-house staff, your processes, your service providers, your systems, your
technology suppliers — and ultimately the CFO role, and its relationship with the business.
Whereas in the past CFOs may have focused on cost reduction, the head of finance now needs
to concentrate on delivering simplicity and agility. Instead of seeking access to talent, the CFO
should demand access to innovation. The finance function won’t be defined by costs; it will be
defined by delivering value.
This is too big a change to be accomplished in a single leap. The scale and complexity of the
change should not be underestimated. But the transformation can be managed.
It requires four major shifts:
• Intelligent sourcing: Taking a hybrid sourcing strategy that touches more processes, with
more different ways of sourcing, in different locations and using the broader partner ecosys-
tem.
• Agile processes: Reimagining the way finance measures process effectiveness, looking at ca-
pability, innovation and soft factors such as customer touchpoints as well as cost; measuring
and paying for end-to-end process outcomes instead of people’s time.
• Smarter strategies: Making change and innovation a core activity — this is not about business
as usual, either for the F&A function or for the business as a whole. Establishing centers of
excellence for the business in areas such as reporting and analytics can help provide ongoing
leadership.
• Empowering technology: The SMAC Stack provides the catalyst for change, giving finance
the tools to drive meaningful collaboration across the business, gain powerful operational
insight, improve outcomes and drive down cost.
A Window of Opportunity: Start Today, by Imagining Smart
Changes Needed Tomorrow
As the holder of the corporate purse, the CFO is uniquely positioned to strengthen the business
foundation and drive growth by investing in new markets and products.
The CFO can manage risks, reduce costs and waste in the system, streamline cash flows and help
the business emerge ready for Code Halo transformations. Given the daunting scale of change,
CFOs may wonder where to start. Here’s our view of the CFO’s Monday morning priorities:
Audit the Data You Already Collect
The finance function has always used data to understand business performance. But when was
the last time your finance team evaluated the data your organization collects? If the function
is shifting from being cost-focused to value-driven, will that change either the data gathered or
how that data is interpreted?
Finance also needs to determine any and all information gaps — for existing operations or
planned changes. For starters, finance needs to understand how data is collected and analyzed.
Creating a common taxonomy and better data consistency and governance and developing
standard performance metrics (across the organization, not just the finance functions) all
The finance function won’t be defined by costs;
it will be defined by delivering value.
9. REVITALIZING FINANCE 9
contribute to more effective decision-making. Integrating ERP systems with CRM feeds, for
example, or applying risk metrics to market data, or mapping pipeline insights with expansion
plans can create that single view of the company to help inform better and quicker decision-
making.
Benchmark Your Business Partnership Maturity
Using industry or peer group data to benchmark existing process performance is an ideal way
to evaluate current performance and identify areas where your organization can drive process
improvements. Has your team identified which finance functions are core to the business, and
which can be handled better by a third party? If you have, have you evaluated how well they are
performing?
Identify Where Change Is Needed
The CFO is ideally placed to become a champion of organization-wide business change. But to
earn the respect and confidence of the C-suite, CFOs need to demonstrate they have a vision for
strategic improvements.
CFOs must define how their own function needs to change, and map the actions required. This
will demonstrate strong leadership and establish a reputation for delivering business improve-
ments.
Footnotes
1 To learn more about Code Halos, read Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organi-
zations Are Changing the Rules of Business, by Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig and Ben Pring, John Wiley
& Sons, April 2014, www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118862074.html.
2 Business Trends 2014: Knowing Your F&A Outsourcing Customer, April 2014, IT019-003337, Ovum.
3 2013 Chief Financial Officer Data Survey, Consero, July 2013.
4 CFO Sentiment Study, January 2013, The CFO Alliance.
5 “The Value of Signal (and the Cost of Noise),” www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/The-Value-of-
Signal-and-the-Cost-of-Noise-The-New-Economics-of-Meaning-Making.pdf.
6 The State of Services & Outsourcing in 2014, KPMG and HfS Research
(study conducted in May and June of 2014.)
7 The Shared Services Imperative: Evolve from Cost-Killer to Value Driver, Cognizant,
www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/The-Shared-Services-Imperative-Evolve-from-Cost-Killer-to-
Value-Driver.pdf.
8 The New Process Genome: Recoding Business Process Work to Thrive in the Modern Digital Economy.
www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitepapers/The-New-Process-Genome-Recoding-Business-Process-Work-
to-Thrive-in-the-Modern-Digital-Economy.pdf.
10. 10 KEEP CHALLENGING February 2015
About the Authors
Scott Mall leads Cognizant’s Finance & Accounting (F&A) BPS business globally
and is responsible for strategic direction and transformation initiatives across the
finance function. He has been a senior leader in the F&A outsourcing market for
the past decade and has set up F&A outsourcing operations in India, the Philip-
pines, China, Eastern Europe, Mauritius and North America. Scott is also a leading
expert on finance function transformation and has helped companies transform
various parts of finance through organizational restructuring, shared services,
process automation and technology enhancements. He has an M.B.A. from the
University of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from
Oglethorpe University. Scott can be reached at Scott.Mall@cognizant.com |
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/scott-mall/7/58/823.
Koushik Chatterjee leads finance and accounting BPS for Cognizant in Europe.
He is responsible for creating F&A solutions that integrate technology, process
automation, people skill and analytics to drive financial transformation across
industries such as travel & hospitality, manufacturing & logistics and financial
services. Prior to Cognizant, Koushik was an IT consultant with experience in
multiple large IT engagements in telecom. He has more than 17 years of experience
across IT and business outsourcing. Koushik can be reached at Koushik.Chatterjee@
cognizant.com | Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/koushikc/.