The Digital CFO Magazine (Summer 2023)

The Digital CFO

ISSUE 04 / Summer 2023

Empowering finance with user-centered design

Why the CFO should care and design considerations to look for

Are you ready for ESG reporting

A look at the challenges ahead in this regulatory change journey

Changing the game

I see the role of my organization and my team being to help these finance leaders shift from accounting and reporting to the role of innovators and change catalysts

Finding the narrative in the numbers

Why storytelling is a critical skill for CFOs

Regulatory reporting transformation on a budget

How smaller Financial Services institutions can meet the regulatory challenges of tomorrow

A conversation with Georg Glantschnig, VP Dynamics 365 at Microsoft, on how he sees the Finance function changing, the transformative role of AI and the power of the ecosystem

A letter from our CEO

Nothing reinforces the increasing speed of business and technology change quite like the trajectory of generative AI over the last few months. I’ve asked every client and partner I’ve met about the impact they think it will have on Finance and the unanimous response has been HUGE. I can’t wait to see the many ways teams will take advantage of the constantly changing and evolving possibilities, whether its spotting anomalies, self-service reporting, predictive forecasting or something completely new. We are prototyping modules here at Aptitude already so watch this space!

I do think fully capitalizing on the promise of AI will take a technology ecosystem and that’s one of the reasons I was thrilled to speak with Georg Glantschnig, VP, Dynamics 365 at Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft have made a $10 Billion investment in Chat GPT, but they’ve also built out the ultimate ecosystems through their Microsoft AppSource and Azure Marketplace sites as well as their ISV Connect Partner program which we were thrilled to join last year. In our interview, we discuss the many ways he sees the finance function changing and the role Microsoft and their ecosystem will play in that evolution. I especially liked his three A’s of finance innovationAutomation, Analytics and AI!

We also have an excellent piece, authored by Carlinde Kallianiotis, co-founder and CEO of Ginger Leadership Communications US, on the increasingly important role of storytelling for CFOs looking to bring data alive to the various audiences they serve. For CFOs, it’s no longer just about the numbers.

Additional articles include perspectives from Kate Dishman, CFO Consulting Partner and Suzanne Chatley, CFO Consulting Senior Manager at EY on ESG reporting challenges, a view on best practices in revenue automation from David Lopez, Director, Accounting Advisory Practice at CFGI and more.

A sincere thank you to all our contributors and I hope you enjoy the issue. Happy reading,

Jeremy Suddards CEO, Aptitude Software

Changing the game

Jeremy Suddards speaks with Microsoft’s, Georg Glantschnig, on the changes he’s seeing in the finance function, the transformative role of AI and the power of a technology ecosystem.

Finding the narrative in the numbers

For CFOs to assume the role of change agent they must embrace financial storytelling and communicate the why behind the numbers.

Are you ready for ESG reporting?

So, your company has set ESG targets and more requirements are becoming mandatory – are you ready for ESG reporting?

Matt Trager, Managing Director, Finance Data and Product Management at SVB, discusses how smaller Financial Services organizations can meet the regulatory challenges of tomorrow.

Beyond revenue recognition

For organizations that get revenue automation right, it can equate to big cost savings and productivity gains. CFGI’s, David Lopez, shares some best practices for full revenue automation.

Empowering finance with user-centered design

A dynamic user experience isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind when you think of software solutions for finance teams but it’s critical to empowering teams to provide strategic guidance to the business, backed by trusted data and analytics.

Regulatory reporting transformation on a budget Five Minutes with...

Going beyond the business to get to know Olivier Homps, President & Chairman of the board at FIIT Consulting.

Changing the game

By Sarah Werner

Name: Georg Glantschnig

Title: VP, Dynamics 365

Organization: Microsoft

Location: Seattle, WA

Georg Glantschnig is a highly accomplished technologist and executive, known for his innovative approach to delivering game-changing enterprise software solutions. With a background in data science, AI, and machine learning, Glantschnig builds winning teams that merge traditional techniques with cutting-edge technology to deliver outstanding results for business leaders across industries. His current focus is using augmented intelligence to transform the future of finance— turning accountants into change catalysts and innovators. With a commitment to mentorship and education, he actively shares his knowledge and experiences to inspire the next generation of technologists.

Recently, he sat down with Aptitude Software CEO, Jeremy Suddards, to discuss how he sees the Finance function changing, the transformative impact of AI and the role of ISV Connect partners in meeting the needs of tomorrow’s finance teams.

Jeremy Suddards: I’m thrilled to be joined today by Georg Glantschnig, VP, Dynamics 365 at Microsoft, to discuss how we are equipping CFOs to drive transformation inside their organizations. Georg, welcome and thanks so much for joining me today – really excited about the conversation we’re going to have.

Georg Glantschnig: Thank you so much for inviting me, looking forward to the conversation as well.

Jeremy Suddards: At Aptitude, we’ve been working with finance leaders for decades and I know Microsoft has as well so I’m curious if you agree with the perspective that we’re seeing a real shift in the role of the CFO. Traditionally, the CFO was quite often ‘looking in the rear-view mirror’ and reporting on history rather than looking forward. In the last five years though, we’ve seen Finance become a key strategic driver in the boardroom and the focus of the organization is coming down to the data on which they sit. Curious to hear if you are seeing a similar shift. Also, I know you recently published some research and

would love to hear some of your findings.

Georg Glantschnig: At Microsoft we have a deep history of working with CFOs as well. We actually just published our third edition of the Future of Finance Trends Report where we surveyed over 500 finance leaders to get their perspectives on the future of finance. It was interesting to see that the leading organizations we surveyed are all trying to strike a balance between speed of business, risk mitigations, cost reductions, growth, acceleration, human inventions, and AI. I think this study really showed that finance teams are facing calls to innovate from every direction within the organization. I also think CFOs are becoming more and more influential, specifically in companies that are taking digital transformation seriously because they want to see real outcomes and real impacts.

To your point earlier, about shifting from a back mirror view into forwardlooking decision making – you need to be able to simulate, to have these what-if scenarios, you want to have planning capabilities – so, I see the role of my organization and my team being to help these finance leaders shift from accounting and reporting to the role of innovators and change catalysts. I think the investments Microsoft is making in AI puts us in a

As the Finance category VP within Microsoft Dynamics 365, Georg Glantschnig has a clear vision for the future of finance and the role Microsoft Cloud solutions can play in the transformation of this key function.

great position to add value for our customers.

Jeremy Suddards: Absolutely, and I think that’s a big switch that we’re just going to see continue to accelerate. So, if you think about the research you just mentioned and you think about where Microsoft is investing, what are the technologies that you think are going to make the biggest difference for the finance teams of the future?

Georg Glantschnig: We are in the midst of such an exciting time for finance leaders and professionals. To provide some context from our survey, 79% of finance leaders believe that to meet the needs of the future, finance must play a significant role in owning business innovations and empowering transformation across the organization. And I think now more than ever, finance teams are focused on transformation, innovation, and specifically, on the future.

To your question about technology, finance teams are being pushed to do more – while not getting more staff. So, I think this new era of finance needs a technology solution that allows them, as the old saying goes, to do more with less. I believe that generative AI is an absolute game changer here. I think it creates this vision of autonomous financial processes where ERP systems are not only streamlining workflows and exceptions, but they can also use AI to solve problems, identify trends, and be more proactive. It makes connecting data and surfacing insights – especially on huge data sets – possible for the first time.

I also think AI provides, what I’ll call, this assistance to humans. So, we are not trying to take humans out of the equation, just allowing them to do more with less, as we said before. And in terms of this historically linear relationship between revenue growth and financial staffing, I think Microsoft itself has shown how we

can break this relationship. If you think about Microsoft over the last five years, revenue has doubled but the staffing in the finance department has only increased by a couple of percentage points. That represents a huge increase in productivity. I think part of the mission my team is trying to deliver on is how can we help customers to overcome the traditional blockers of adopting AI, analytics, automation so that we can really boost their productivity.

Jeremy Suddards: One of the things we’re thinking about at Aptitude is helping finance automate everything. To us, that means taking finance teams to a point where data flows are fully automated, the financial close happens instantly, decision-making is supported in real time and finance professionals are doing far more interesting and valuable things. If we take that ‘automate everything’ idea to its kind of natural conclusion, how do you think about that creation of a truly autonomous finance function?

Georg Glantschnig: At Microsoft, automation is one of the three A’s of finance innovation – automation, analytics, and artificial intelligence – and I think automation is critical for finance organizations as they transition into a more strategic role. If you say yes to strategic decision making, if you say yes to owning business model innovation and all

the cool stuff we just talked about, you also have to say no to something because a day, unfortunately, only has 24 hours. So, I think customers have to say no to tedious, manual, error-prone processes.

I think you have to offer this automation at the pace of the customer. We work with customers at very different levels of automation so what we are trying to do at Microsoft is ask how we can ensure automation capabilities can be rolled out in a flexible way so it can be configurable and scalable. The ultimate goal, is an autonomous, continuous close process. You want real-time insights activated. You want, of course, to have this secure and at every level of the organization. I know it sounds like a dream, but I think this dream is about to come true.

The impact of generative AI on reporting, analytics, on insights, on planning, on forecasting will be major. Gone are these times where you need deep data science expertise, where you have to spend hours and hours just slicing and dicing data. I think with AI, finance professionals will be able to ask questions and get data and insights very quickly that they can use to make informed and better decisions.

Jeremy Suddards: The three A’s of finance innovation, I love that. So, we’ve talked about the changing of the function and role technology is playing. But I think we have to talk about how the role of the finance professional is changing as well. I’m seeing a very different kind of person in the finance function today. They’re very data driven, they want to be empowered to use technology rather than rely on other parts of the organization and there’s this push to create a narrative so that stakeholders can focus on the key points rather than looking at a bunch of data. How does Microsoft think about designing their products for the finance professional of the future?

“

I think this new era of finance needs a technology solution that allows them, as the old saying goes, to do more with less.

Georg Glantschnig: I’d say that’s a very valid and important point. And I think empowering finance professionals to be more than, I call it the numbers guy – not meant in a negative way – to become a catalyst through storytelling, is a critical part of the technology we’re developing.

For example, we recently delivered enhancements for what we call a collection experience or a collection agent with Microsoft Copilot. The collection agent not only has KPIs, of course, but it also provides talking points to help you proactively have a conversation and communicate with your customers. This is critical because I think the modern collection process is not just about hounding customers for payments, it’s about working proactively with customers to keep these accounts in a good standing while driving customer loyalty.

I think you also have a lot of examples where you can use AI to improve accounts payable, and good examples for record to report. I think in every area of finance there are a lot of enhancements coming.

And when I think about AI, you know, the A in AI for us is not Artificial. It’s Augmented Intelligence because we still feel that generative AI can help finance people to make better and faster decisions. And I think the enhancements we have seen now in, in ChatGPT and GPT-4 specifically for numeric data, I think for me is beyond impressive. We just did a hackathon with my own team in our development environment, and we delivered what we call summarization features for project managers and for financial analysts. Is it already a hundred percent? I don’t think so, but honestly, if I can get a proposal at 80% complete that I can work on compared to starting from scratch? I think it’s a huge game changer.

Jeremy Suddards: When I speak to our clients, the value of our accounting hub and subledger technology is all about the data that sits within them and the ability to create these great big data sets that people can start to mine. AI, of course, completely changes the game. The volume and the output just go up exponentially and start to make real-time data a reality. It also means that the decisions the businesses

make can literally be in the moment as opposed to at a period end. How do you see AI specifically changing the finance function and what do you think organizations need to do to prepare themselves to be able to take advantage of the opportunity?

Georg Glantschnig: At Microsoft, we are really committed to revolutionizing the future of finance by harnessing the power of what we call intelligent, composable technologies. We are trying to infuse AI, automation, analytics – the three A’s I mentioned before – into every business process. This is allowing us to unlock a completely new era of productivity and help finance and operations teams shift how they are working.

If you look at generative AI capabilities from Microsoft, I think it marks a transformative chapter in the evolution of ERP systems. I strongly believe we are at an inflection point there and I think with this ability we talked about to speed up insights, intelligently automate processes, drive faster productivity, I think the AI revolution has the potential to help finance teams stay ahead of the increased complexity that every company is facing.

I really encourage everybody to listen to some of the sessions from Microsoft Build, the event we held recently. If you have time, watch the keynotes of Satya Nadella, of Kevin Scott, our CTO, of Scott Guthrie, who is leading Cloud and AI. They really explain and outline how we provide our AI platform based on Azure and how we are delivering on all these promises we’ve talked about today in a reliable, responsible, and safe way. This AI platform is the foundation my teams are using to build the scenarios we’ve talked about, it’s the same foundation our partners will use and the same foundation our customers will use. And because of this, I think we will see a huge acceleration of innovation and new solutions.

“

Automation capabilities can be rolled out in a flexible way so it can be configurable and scalable. The ultimate goal, is an autonomous, continuous close process. You want real-time insights activated. You want, of course, to have this secure and at every level of the organization. I know it sounds like a dream, but I think this dream is about to come true.

Jeremy Suddards: It’s interesting you use the word ‘composable’ there as it’s absolutely one of the key principles we have adopted in the development of Fynapse. I think part of today’s view of composable, which both our organizations share, is that clients expect us to drive significantly more integration work ahead of client implementation. That really is what allows clients to get the benefit of best of breed components with the tight integration that you get with a single stack, single vendor engagement. What’s your take on that?

Georg Glantschnig: It’s a very interesting point of view. When I think about these terms – best of breed or best of suite, versus full stack I think they were more relevant in the on-premise era. Innovation was delivered at a much slower pace – maybe every two years clients were receiving new updates. Now, in the cloud, innovation cycles are much faster – for example, we ship in monthly cycles. So, I completely agree with your statement, but I think the lines between best of breed and single stack are more blurry in today’s cloud environment. Today, I think for me it’s more like an and versus an or. It’s not a decision you have to make. Composability, extensibility are core

with the products in the Microsoft Cloud we’re delivering.

As we look across the Microsoft Cloud, including of course, Dynamics, Power Platform, I think there’s no reason why a customer should lock themselves into a single stack or, as we call it, a black box suite, which is very difficult to change. I think organizations of all sizes need a flexible platform that can integrate with best of breed solutions and I think Microsoft AppSource supports this position for us.

Jeremy Suddards: So that brings me to my final question. We were thrilled to become an ISV Connect Partner last year and have seen incredible value in the relationship, both from engaging with Microsoft go to market teams, but also in making sure our technology integrations happen really quickly. Can you talk about some of the reasons why Microsoft selected Aptitude as an ISV Connect Partner and the joint benefits are delivering to our clients?

Georg Glantschnig: Absolutely. I think one of the main differentiators we have is our unique ERP marketplace for ISV solutions. Microsoft has a large ERP marketplace offering and I think it’s a very compelling for our

customers because they will find a solution for almost every situation. They are not depending on the speed of our innovation but rather the platform we provide and the combined capabilities of our partner ecosystem.

So, in this context, selecting Aptitude as an ISV Connect Partner was a very smart decision! Our large, global customers hoping to consolidate everything into one single system - I think is a dream and I think it might stay a dream forever because these companies, they invest, they divest, they merge, they acquire. I think what they need is an affordable way of connecting data from across different ledgers to subledgers and to create insights and consolidated financial reporting.

I think the technology integration of Aptitude’s Fynapse solution and Microsoft Dynamics 365 will provide our customers with a single source of truth, real-time processing, reduced time to close, enhanced audit controls, and better financial analytics. I think with one cohesive solution, we will turn the complexity of finance digitalization into an opportunity to achieve more with less. I think it’s a huge game changer.

Finding the narrative in the numbers

Why storytelling is a critical skill for CFOs

By Carlinde Kallianiotis

Name:

Title:

Carlinde Kallianiotis

Partner and Leadership Coach

Organization: Ginger Leadership Communications

Location: New York, NY

Carlinde Kallianiotis is the co-founder and CEO of Ginger US. She brings over 15 years of experience in senior leadership and executive roles and serves on the board of directors of a non-profit. Carlinde is a visionary leader, change maker and coach and believes that leaders are in a unique position to drive positive change within their organization and beyond. Her focus is on helping them activate their unique strengths, increase their presence and impact, and promote human-centric, courageous communication and storytelling within the business world.

During his first board meeting, Nick Salas, the new CFO of one of North America’s largest designers and producers of clothing and accessories, learned the importance of telling the story behind the numbers. When the CEO saw that Nick brought a huge, indexed binder to the meeting, he said: “I never want you to bring that binder anywhere again. If a CFO is only using numbers, they’re not telling the story.” He then reminded him that he already had people who could provide him with the numbers, what he needed was a partner who could tell the story of what the numbers mean for the business. Initially taken aback, Nick soon came to understand that financial data alone was not enough to tell the full story of a business’ success and that once you’re a CFO it’s much more about storytelling and influencing than sharing numbers.

Lucy Perrell, the CFO of a technology company, recognized the power of storytelling when presenting the company’s financial data to employees and stakeholders. She shared a story about one of the families that benefited from the company’s low-cost educational

software and explained how it had helped a child with a learning disability access personalized learning resources, leading to better grades and a newfound love for learning. By connecting financial data to a larger narrative, she was able to not only demonstrate increased revenue but also inspire everyone in the organization to continue striving for success.

On the surface, finance and storytelling might seem to be polar opposites: one is about numbers, the other about language. However, like the CFOs in the above examples, if you can uncover the narrative in the numbers, you have at your disposal a powerful tool that provides context to facts and figures. It allows the C-suite, Board and other stakeholders to connect with your message on an emotional level and understand the financial impact on the business.

The CFO shift

It’s now widely accepted that the role of the CFO has shifted from backward-looking reporting and risk management to forward-thinking

For CFOs to assume the role of change agent and transformation enabler, they must embrace financial storytelling and communicate the why behind the numbers.

planning and strategy. According to a white paper put together by Brainyard, 82% are accountable for their company’s strategic direction, in addition to budgeting, auditing, reporting, and integrating new technology.1

To fully assume this role, they must be able to identify and communicate the meaning of their data and create a plan of action that stakeholders can embrace and support. Then they need to tell the story of the success that will result from that action. Connecting financial data to a larger story can inspire and unite teams towards a common goal.

As a CFO, you’re not only tasked with telling the story of what’s in the past but also what’s to come. With the vast amounts of data available within every organization, you need to be able to curate that information and provide powerful insights to both internal and external stakeholders and investors. There’s no better way to do this than by finding the narrative in the numbers.

The Chief Data Storyteller

According to a recent eBook created by Insight Solutions, the CFO needs to evolve into the CDS – the Chief Data Storyteller. “A CFO’s role should be just as much about understanding, investigating and sharing the stories behind the business as it is about balancing the books and reporting the numbers.”2 However, this is easier said than done. CFOs are generally not trained storytellers. In fact, they

may believe that telling a story is frivolous or may even undermine the data. Far better to stick to the old way of presenting the numbers because the numbers speak for themselves, right? Well, no not really. They might speak to finance professionals but not to those who don’t spend their lives pouring over spreadsheets.

What do the numbers mean? What can you tell us about them? How can you help us make an informed decision? Can you make numbers fun?

How to turn numbers into a story

Here are a few quick tips to start you on your data storytelling journey:

• Look at the data the way a detective examines a crime scene. Then present your evidence and build your case in the form of a narrative. Don’t forget there’s a human story behind every data point, so start to see data as a huge set of tiny stories.

• What’s the strategic narrative of your company? Think about where your customers/clients are right now. Where do you want to take them and how are you going to get them there? What has to happen? What obstacles need to be overcome? How can you bring them with you? Start by identifying the change you want to create and reverse engineer your story from there.

• Start and end with a story rather than a graph or bar chart. Data

visualizations can be effective, but you still need to wrap them in a narrative – and make it personal if you can. Don’t forget that people buy people, not numbers.

• Rather than rattling off figures, think of more inventive and relatable ways to contextualize them – for example, rather than saying, “We sold 1.5 million units,” you could say, “The number of units sold would fill an Olympic-sized stadium.”

• Experiment with one of the basic tenets of effective storytelling – show, don’t tell. For example, a global newspaper recently wrote an article about the wealth position of the richest person on earth ($185 billion USD). To make this number imaginable for the reader, they explained that this money could buy you 400,000 modern town houses in the US. Not everyone is as familiar with financial numbers and these storytelling tricks are effective.

The CFOs in the opening stories understood that data doesn’t speak for itself. You need to speak for it and that means finding the narrative in the numbers. Most importantly, learning how to tell stories well won’t take as long as you think – and it’s guaranteed to provide a huge return on investment as you evolve in your role.

For more information about Ginger Leadership Communications’ flagship Storytelling Mastery program, go to www.gingerleadershipcomms.com/ course/storytelling-mastery

1 https://www.netsuite.com/portal/assets/pdf/wp-brainyard-state-of-the-cfo-role-in-2019.pdf

2 https://insightsoftware.com/resources/the-evolution-of-the-cfo-into-the-chief-data-storyteller/

Win hearts and minds by bringing your data alive!

Ginger’s Storytelling Mastery program for data specialists demystifies the art of storytelling

Help technical experts tell clearer, more powerful stories, influence experts and non-experts alike, and make sense of your company’s best ideas

Learn more >

Are you ready for ESG reporting?

So, your company has set ESG targets and more requirements are becoming mandatory - are you ready for ESG reporting?

By Kate Dishman and Suzanne Chatley

The global EY organization has been positioned a leader in the latest Verdantix5 Green Quadrant ESG & Sustainability Consulting 2022. The report evaluates 15 global sustainability service providers and ranks EY highest for ESG and sustainability program strategy, governance performance management category and ranks EY in the top three for climate change strategy and risk offering. With a 20+ year legacy in sustainability and ESG services, the global organization combines deep technical skills to help protect and help create value for all stakeholders and to build a better working world.

It feels like companies, and especially finance functions, are constantly on a regulatory change journey, implementing regulatory reporting changes from International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 to IFRS 17 and many others along the way. Now it’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting requirements, and we’ve done it before, so surely, we can do it again?

Of course, it can be done again, and finance functions are wellversed on how to respond. However, ESG reporting has its own suite of challenges, ranging from complex reporting across a plethora of standards to a wider range of interested stakeholders.

It may sound daunting, but the complexities it brings also unlock opportunities many have been striving for in achieving the “finance of the future.” It breaks down barriers between functions as data will need to come together in a more dynamic way, and finance will be able to play a pivotal role strategically. It’s the catalyst CFOs and finance functions have needed, and it doesn’t get much more important than this to really make it happen now.

What new challenges will we face?

Many financial services companies have been reporting ESG metrics for years to meet listing rules defined by the Taskforce on Climaterelated Financial Disclosures (TCFD) or voluntarily under frameworks and EU disclosure requirements such as Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

Name: Kate Dishman

Title: CFO Consulting Partner

Kate Dishman, CFO Consulting Partner, with over 20 years of experience in financial services. She is working with CFOs across sectors to navigate how they will respond to ESG needs, leveraging her extensive experience in the services of large-scale finance transformation.

As the requirements span more than one ESG reporting framework and continue to develop over time, many organizations are spending time to decipher which regulations are applicable to them and how data will be sourced to meet these needs.

The operating model will need to evolve to cater to this non-financial driver unlike any other we’ve seen before, and many acknowledge the need to invest in building a more sustainable operating model going forward for ESG reporting. Let’s take a look through the different lenses:

Data

The biggest hurdle for companies to overcome in their quest to capture and report ESG information is data. With all regulatory change comes data challenges, either new requirements or more granular data needs. For many, even as a starting point, legacy data issues continue to hamper finance’s ability to make meaningful improvements on a larger scale.

Name: Suzanne Chatley

Title: CFO Consulting Senior Manager

Suzanne Chatley, CFO Consulting Senior Manager, with over 12 years of experience in finance, predominately in services of global finance regulatory change programs. She is working with clients to define their requirements for Carbon external and internal reporting and designing the target operating model.

For ESG reporting, data requirements are expected to rely on new external sources which brings a whole new complexity to the operating model, as well as new data sets being required at a greater level of granularity. The challenge is in both sourcing the required data and bringing the datasets together in a controlled manner which will pass the audit requirements of external reporting.

Similar to prior regulatory changes, interpretation of the requirements will be key and a complex challenge for data. Many of the requirements

will be going through consultation, meaning the data model to support ESG reporting will need to remain flexible and able to absorb new requirements over time.

Technology

Given the myriad of data sources, it will be essential to leverage existing solutions, and many will implement new solutions to support data handling, data quality, calculations, and reporting processes.

Many of the traditional finance vendors are demonstrating ESG use cases or adapting their offering to support ESG reporting. There are also sustainability-focused solutions in the market which are already established to meet the needs of parts of ESG reporting, and the solution landscape continues to progress with new entrants regularly Some organizations are using this as an opportunity to streamline the solutions handling core datasets across functions.

These solutions provide the functionalities to not only enable

organizations to be compliant, but many also assist with decisionmaking, which is key for ESG reporting providing management information, analytics and forecasting capabilities.

People

The breadth of stakeholders interested and involved in this topic is much more far-reaching, and that is both a benefit to the business and a challenge operationally.

Internally, product owners, strategy, risk, investments, procurement, sustainability, and finance teams all need to align their objectives to enable a cohesive operating model to exist.

Externally, in addition to regulators and investors, customers and employees too will be taking an interest. There will be a greater need to be “with the pack” or “ahead of the pack” in terms of positive action taken to meet ESG targets. The need for timely and accurate information will be key to enable teams to make meaningful change year after year. In

finance, with this increased focus on non-financial reporting requirements, capability within the team will need to upskill on the key drivers and metrics for ESG to support this need.

Process

While processes and controls are usually well understood and embedded in existing financial reporting, the introduction of ESG reporting has meant that there are new inputters and functions involved on the critical path and a need for more efficient reporting increasing the pressure on an already overburdened working day timetable (WDT)

Finance will need to define processes at a practical level that support the delivery of common data and reporting across a number of different regulatory standards. They will also be responsible for ensuring an effective end-to-end control framework is in place as there is a need for high-quality disclosures and detail on ESG outcomes. It will be critical for finance to consider how they seek assurances over

non-financial data quality and how and when these data points will be audited in the future.

When is the right time to invest?

Unlike other non-financial drivers, ESG is no longer in the optional domain or “nice to have.” It’s moving front and center for many interested stakeholders, particularly investors, and is expected to be a key area of interest globally. There is still time for organizations to get ready and develop how they will report on ESG metrics in the longer term.

Many organizations who have already established their ESG strategy are moving forward to implement the reporting aspects by:

• Understanding stakeholder expectations and baselining a view of which ESG reporting frameworks will be followed, as some are market practice but not mandatory.

• Capturing the key requirements, including those from impending mandatory regulations, and embarking on data discovery

activity to identify key data gaps or inconsistencies that need addressing which can be time-consuming.

• Assess current technology capabilities and scan the market for technology solutions that may be required to fill capability gaps, considering the key trigger points on when it will be critical to invest.

• Define the ESG delivery target operating model determining responsibilities for 1. Regulatory oversight 2. Methodology definition, 3. Target setting and 4. External reporting delivery.

• Identifying the future skillsets to report, plan, forecast, and support decision-making against ESG metrics and the approach to building these skills.

• Understanding which ESG ratings are important to focus on and how to create reporting outputs to impact these ratings over time.

Conclusion

ESG is a new domain for many in finance and will need time to be fully understood and embedded. As with prior regulatory change programs, the breadth and volume of activity to undertake may seem overwhelming but breaking it down into manageable milestones and staying abreast with changes will be key.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.

Regulatory reporting transformation on a budget

How can the smaller institutions meet the regulatory challenges of tomorrow?

By Matt Trager

Name: Matt

Trager

Title: Managing Director, Finance Data & Product Management

Organization: Silicon Valley Bank, a Division of First Citizens Bank

Location: Charlotte, NC

Matt is a data and product leader with over 20 years of delivery experience in Regional and Global Banking in the US and UK with a specialization in CFO and Regulatory Reporting. He has worked at Bank of America, Lloyds Banking Group, Deutsche Bank and HSBC executing at both a leadership and operational/SME level. His focus has been on delivering complex change and data transformations while embedding data management capabilities and leveraging Cloud/SaaS solutions to drive business value and process optimization.

Today, regulatory reporting and data management are seen as essential strategic functions which provide vital services to the business and its management of risk. The maturity and robustness of these capabilities have become a core differentiator across the financial services landscape. Firms have invested tremendous resources and capital on technology and business transformation to build out these capabilities to meet evolving requirements. Given the costs of insufficient compliance, financial institutions are thinking through how they will deliver timely and robust regulatory frameworks.

The most meaningful question being debated since the global financial crisis is how to right size regulation to financial risk and how to ensure the adaptability of regulations to address changing macro risks.

In the ever-changing world of financial services, one thing remains constant: the evolution of the regulatory landscape and the increasing sophistication and investment needed to meet those developing standards.

What does a great architecture provide?

The burning question on the minds of small and mid-sized financial institutions is: How can we afford to meet the same standards as the world’s largest financial institutions? Global systemic banks have made substantial investments to develop data and reporting architectures capable of meeting regulatory requirements, but these solutions come at tremendous costs. Building an architecture that meets the evolving standards involves various crucial elements, including data sourcing, quality controls, report management, and change management based on regulatory instructions. An architecture which can meet these standards must deliver the following:

• A data sourcing solution which provides/enables:

• Sourcing and standardization of data attributes in a consistent, auditable away

• Proactive data quality controls aligned to BCBS data principles

• Ability to trace the flow of data from capture to use with ready access to underlying business and/ or reporting logic

• Management and control of manual data sources and attributes

• A reporting architecture which provides/enables:

• Report process management, easily tracking reports across their delivery lifecycle, ensuring timely and accurate reporting

• Multiple concurrent users across reports, with tight version controls to maintain data integrity and streamline collaboration

• Intra/inter reporting controls, enabling precise reconciliations, such as linking 14M/Q to FRY9C line items effortlessly

• Lineage from data set to report position/column, providing a transparent trail that instills confidence in the accuracy of your reports

• Controlled change management for adapting to changing regulator instructions and requirements while ensuring compliance

What are the real drivers of implementation cost?

These largest institutions not only spent the significant investment and multiple years of effort to deliver these solutions, but also incur the ongoing operational costs to operate and manage their architecture over time. Aside from the technology and platform operations staff, institutions require data management and governance professionals at the enterprise, product domain and functional domain (Credit, Risk, Finance etc.) levels to ensure and maintain compliance over time.

Underlying these significant delivery costs are a set of cost drivers which go beyond the direct expense of the software itself. Some of these drivers are:

• Volume, complexity and age of domain source system platforms requiring data ingestion and standardization.

• Complexity and customization of the regulatory reporting data model.

• Quality of source data landscape documentation (metadata) and availability of data dictionaries.

• Availability and expertise of subject matter experts (SMEs) in both regulatory reporting and source systems.

• Maturity of the existing data landscape, including automated data quality controls, agile development practices and modern ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) components.

• Potential costs associated with data remediation efforts to ensure data accuracy, completeness, and consistency across multiple systems and reports.

• Costs associated with regulatory and data platform development/ configuration, including the involvement of consultants and vendor subject matter experts.

What do loyalty programs and Regulatory Reporting have in common?

Both large institutions that have grown through acquisition as well as smaller institutions that have yet to make the necessary investments to scale their environment are vulnerable to these cost drivers. The cost of data and reporting platform configuration is by far one of the most impactful to the cost of delivery. The current suite of platforms requires tremendous amounts of effort to configure them for the breadth of requirements. It is this challenge where I believe innovation is both needed and, with the right ecosystem, coming within our reach.

In our daily business and personal lives, we have become accustomed to the concept of tiered service without giving it much thought. Whether it’s airlines, hotels, or even cloud hosting, we expect different levels of service that align with our specific needs. In the realm of application support, we understand that real-time transaction processing applications require a different level of technical support and disaster recovery measures compared to HR systems. So why don’t we apply the same mindset when it comes to building and delivering mission-critical data and regulatory applications?

The explosion in large language AI models is the appetizer for a meal we can’t even dream of yet. This wave of change coupled with the maturation of cloud technology, SaaS and natural language processing is creating an opportunity to develop a radical new approach to how software can be configured and delivered.

Let’s take a moment to envision a bank with $50 billion in assets. This bank likely operates with a modest Regulatory Reporting team consisting of 3-5 individuals. Its annual budget for financial initiatives may reach a maximum of $1-2 million to support funded initiatives. How is this organization going to fund the transformation programs necessary to upgrade its landscape to meet the new requirements? Moreover, in light of the volatility of the macro environment and the unprecedented behaviors exhibited by the markets, how can this bank ensure command and control over its data to effectively address its most critical regulatory questions?

I firmly believe that the solution lies in integrating cutting-edge technologies into a tier-based service model. This model will revolutionize the way regulatory reporting is approached. Picture a plug-andplay, template-based, self-service platform that is easily accessible to small internal teams. Gone are the days of relying on costly consultants and vendors specifically tailored to the needs of larger, more intricate institutions. This innovative model will effortlessly adapt to the requirements of retail and community banking, simplifying their operations. What’s more, it has the flexibility to scale and cater to the needs of global systemically important institutions. These institutions, with their complex balance sheets, diverse product offerings, and extensive client base, will benefit from a heightened level of customer service, exceptional design, and comprehensive configuration and implementation support.

What is needed to realize the vision?

With more than 4,000 retail/ commercial banks in the US, where only the top 35 have more than $100B in assets, the potential for this tiered service model is enormous. Furthermore, to preserve the diversity and vibrancy of regional and community banks, they need the best tools to tackle the challenges ahead. However, realizing this vision requires a few critical enablers:

1. A vibrant Financial and Regulatory Technology landscape incubating and driving disrupters and innovations (must have)

2. Rationalization of reporting requirements across US regulators to ensure minimal duplication of data across reports and schedules (must have)

3. Agreement on a financial and prudential data point model defining the data requirements necessary to meet this rationalized set of reporting requirements (must have)

4. Transition from reports to data sets as the foundations for regulatory supervision (nice to have)

Irrespective of the future landscape, one thing remains certain: the demand for information from regulators and other supervisory stakeholders, necessary for agile supervision in our ever-changing world, will continue to escalate. Consequently, it becomes imperative for financial institutions of all sizes to discover avenues through which we can seamlessly integrate these strategic capabilities, eliminating any cost barriers to implementation.

The current Financial and Regulatory Technology space boasts a plethora of more than 20 established and startup vendors, each contributing to the innovation ecosystem. With their expertise and the support of this dynamic ecosystem, I firmly believe that the next evolution in this realm is imminent, poised to revolutionize the way we navigate regulatory changes and challenges.

Author’s note: Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Silicon Valley Bank or First Citizens Bank.

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Irrespective of the future landscape, one thing remains certain: the demand for information from regulators and other supervisory stakeholders, necessary for agile supervision in our ever-changing world, will continue to escalate.

Beyond revenue recognition

Best practices for full revenue automation

By David Lopez

David Lopez is a Director in the Accounting Advisory Practice at CFGI. He has over 12 years of experience and focuses predominantly on matters relating to revenue recognition, including technical accounting, reporting and automation. Prior to joining CFGI, David worked in the audit practice at Deloitte and Touche.

From revenue recognition to revenue automation

The revenue recognition regulatory standards ASC 606 and IFRS 15 took businesses by storm five years ago and triggered a massive amount of spending. While investments in data, systems and processes helped achieve compliance, in most cases they failed to truly automate revenue recognition or the broader revenue lifecycle. A surprising 48% of businesses with a recurring revenue model state they struggle to meet accounting and reporting challenges.3

Name: David Lopez

Title: Director, Accounting Advisory Practice

Organization: CFGI

Location: New York, NY

David is a Director in the Accounting Advisory Practice at CFGI, providing accounting and consulting services to clients in a variety of industries. David is a revenue recognition and Revenue Management Software (“RMS”) implementation specialist with over 12 years of experience. Prior to joining CFGI, Mr. Lopez worked in the Audit practice at Deloitte & Touche. Since joining CFGI, David has worked on over 10 RMS implementations in a variety of industries including software, technology, and telecommunications.

For organizations that get revenue automation right, it can equate to big cost savings and productivity gains. Studies show an estimated 75% of accounting activities can be automated. This can mean increased accuracy and reliability of data, better visibility into customer contracts and accounts receivable, improved forecasting and reduced costs.4

The ability of companies to successfully package, price, collect, recognize, analyze and report on revenue will play a role in their success. This starts with automating contract data capture, events and performance obligations and continues through the lifecycle to include automatically applying role-based revenue recognition policies against contracts and obligations, automating accounting and required calculations and generating reporting and analytics.

Putting in place this level of automation allows businesses to reduce manual errors, gain real-time visibility into their contracts and accounts receivable (AR), and ensure compliance with accounting standards. Additionally, revenue activities provide a wealth of data that can be beneficial for the entire organization. If finance can provide this

data, in an easily consumable format, to other areas of the business it can shift the finance organization into a more strategic position.

If you don’t have full revenue automation in place today, you are not alone – but the time to start is now.

Revenue automation best practices

Drawing on our expertise leading many revenue automation change programs at CFGI, I’ve pulled together a list of best practices for finance teams looking to automate revenue processes.

Understand your contracts and obligations

The simplest steps can also be the most challenging. To fully automate revenue processes, you must have a deep understanding of revenue contracts and associated performance obligations. This is key to fully understanding your requirements for any revenue automation solution. The more complex your contracts are, the more likely it is that you’ll need a specialized revenue management solution to account for those arrangements. Standard contracts and complex contracts will both include product description, service description, quantity, warranties, or guarantees offered by either party as well as conditions for returns and refunds, payment details, delivery dates, and more.

Where we start to see companies enter that more complex realm is when contracts include acceptance clauses and terms for convenience clauses. In cases where companies are looking to shift to a subscription model, this can introduce complex pricing models, tiered pricing, bundle pricing, and volume-based pricing. It is essential for businesses with these complex pricing models to have a standardized contracting

process that outlines all of the terms, conditions and pricing essential for accurate revenue recognition.

Tracking changes in real time

Once you have a deep understanding of your contracts, you’ll need to automate data collection and plan to track the many changes that happen to those contracts over the contract lifecycle. This means capturing all the necessary customer data and usage information including contract terms, product information, discounts, offered payment methods, and billing terms.

Critically, you also must be able to track contract modifications like upgrades, pricing changes, product swaps, ad-ons and more. This is especially important in a subscription model economy. In most cases, contract management software tools that exist out there today can automate many of these activities.

Forecasting

One of the biggest challenges for revenue operations is forecasting. A recent survey from Prophix Software indicates that only 20% of finance teams have the ability to forecast revenue and earnings beyond 12 months.

This is a critical area for organizations. Businesses need to have visibility into future customer payments and recurring revenues to accurately recognize revenue, invoice accordingly and better predict cash flows. The better you’re able to predict cash flows, the more equipped you are to make strategic business decisions about how you structure contracts with customers.

To help increase the reliability and predictability of customer payments, businesses should utilize an automated billing system that creates and sends invoices based on customer contract terms. For example, if you’re coming up for

renewal, sending in an invoice in advance before the payment is due can make it more likely to collect payments on time. Organizations should also look to offer multiple payment methods, providing more options to the customer. Essentially, the goal is to switch to a more predictable revenue model, which eliminates the need for manual invoicing and billing and prioritizes recurring revenue.

Track fulfillment and usage

The next critical area to address is automating the tracking of customer fulfillment and usage. Businesses must keep track of any changes to customer contracts or usage - including license activations, services performed or the delivery of a product - that could affect revenue recognition. These elements will impact when to start recognizing revenue as well as your deferred revenue and balance sheet.

This is a process that must be automated to ensure you are properly recognizing revenue and avoiding under or over-invoicing customers and to cut down on manual requirements on the part of the finance team and subsequent risk of errors.

Revisit the standards and accounting guidance regularly

This goes without saying but it’s important to regularly review your processes and procedures to ensure they comply with the latest accounting standards. The accounting standards governing revenue recognition are constantly changing and businesses must ensure that they follow the latest regulations. Even if an organization has its own accounting department, having a third party professional review its practices can help avoid potential compliance issues.

A recent client of mine was in the middle of a revenue management

software project. They had been experiencing delays and brought us in to help mitigate the issue. One of the significant drivers for the delay was a specific customization that was requested by the company to account for their contract arrangements. However, we quickly discovered that the process they were following was not in compliance with the with the guidance and these errors were reflected in the customization work that was requested. Time and money had been wasted building a process that wasn’t compliant. Automation doesn’t address bad processes and it’s critical to ensure processes and procedures are in compliance with GAAP or IFRS.

Automation of data for accuracy

Data entry or manually moving data from one system to another via spreadsheets or by hand is often the most error prone element of the entire revenue recognition process.

Having that information flow automatically between systems is key to help ensure accuracy, compliance and risk mitigation - in addition to streamlining the entire

process. Software that is compatible with existing ERP and CRM systems is especially helpful as it allows businesses to easily sync customer data and contract information across multiple business systems.

Know the limits of your ERP

One of the most common pitfalls we’ve seen in our in past implementations and projects is believing current ERP systems are enough to handle your revenue contract arrangements. ERP systems are excellent for managing financial processes, including some aspects of revenue recognition, but companies should not assume that ERP systems are enough to ensure accurate revenue recognition and compliance with the accounting standards.

One of the main limitations of ERP systems is that they don’t function as a subledger and cannot provide the detailed customer data and usage information needed for accurate revenue recognition without some sort of cost or customization. Furthermore, ERP systems usually cannot track contract modifications and address changes in according with compliance guidelines. So

ultimately, to ensure accuracy, businesses need software specifically designed for revenue recognition.

Conclusion

Successful revenue automation impacts a wide swath of the business. When pushing for change, it is important to involve stakeholders far beyond the revenue department and even finance as a whole. It should involve procurement, sales operations, product teams, supply chain and more. By illustrating the pain points across the entire revenue lifecycle, you can build a cross-departmental business case for change.

Empowering finance with usercentered design

By Simon Williams

A dynamic user experience isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind when you think of software solutions for finance teams. Between the legacy systems that many organizations still manage and the data security and governance requirements necessary to handle sensitive data and information, CFOs and their teams can be left with clunky and manual-heavy solutions.

However, as finance teams are increasingly tasked with providing strategic guidance to the business, backed by sound data and analytics, their ability to access intuitive, integrated, user-friendly tools are critical.

Why should the CFO care about finance user design?

Talent retention

Name: Simon Williams

Title: Global Product Owner, Fynapse

Organization: Aptitude Software

Location: London

Simon joined Aptitude in August of 2022. He comes from an Investment Banking background with 14 years of experience working across various facets of Business, Product Control, Finance Change and Infrastructure Finance Change. He also has previous experience leading product initiatives in the subledger space.

Manual journal entries. Data lifting and shifting. Managing excel spreadsheets.

Subjecting finance teams to these sorts of manual, time-consuming tasks is a quick way to lose talent, drive up the cost of finance and limit the strategic value the finance function brings to the organization. Today’s finance professionals expect more intuitive applications that prioritize a positive user experience.

So, how does a CFO benefit from a solution designed with the finance professional in mind?

It’s not a secret that there is a talent shortage in the finance function. According to one 2022 survey, 75% of CFO respondents stated the talent shortage was impacting revenue. Additionally, Deloitte revealed that 82% of hiring managers at public companies feel that recruiting accounting and financial talent is a significant challenge.

While things like salary and benefits will likely be primary drivers for recruitment and retention, many organizations also want to ensure finance professionals have the tools they need to contribute to the strategic growth of the business rather than executing repetitive, manual processes which leave teams burnt out.

Cost reduction

When finance teams are empowered to use a solution without IT assistance, organizations can save

on costs associated with IT staffing, training and software maintenance. Finance teams that can access intuitive user interfaces and pre-built integrations to access the data they need, analyze it and make informed decisions can also reduce the burden on the IT department, freeing up their time to focus on other initiatives.

Speed to market

In addition to cost reduction, empowering finance teams to operate independently can also lead to improved efficiency, accuracy and speed to market. Finance professionals are experts in their field so by giving them the autonomy to operate within a solution, they can customize accounting rules, workflows or reports to meet their specific needs and more efficiently complete finance tasks. This can also streamline processes and reduce the risk of errors that can occur when trying to translate finance requirements to an IT audience.

Designing with the finance user in mind

There are a few key terms to understand as you think about software designed for the finance user. Most have likely heard of user experience (UX) design and user interface (UI) design. These are related terms but have slightly different meanings.

UX, or user experience, refers to the overall experience that a user has with a product or service. It encompasses all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product, including how easy it is to use, how enjoyable it is to use, and how well it meets the user’s needs.

UI, or user interface, refers specifically to the visual and interactive elements that the user interacts with. This includes things like buttons, menus, forms, and other graphical elements. UI design is focused on creating an interface that is visually appealing, easy to understand, and easy to use.

Overall, the role of a UX and UI researcher is to bring the user’s perspective into the design process by gathering data and insights about user behavior and preferences.

Design considerations

We all know that feeling when an application or solution is just intuitive and easy to use. Each feature and function make sense and works together to help us achieve the task at hand. However, enterprise finance solutions too often sacrifice user experience when compromises have to be made.

When we designed Fynapse, Aptitude’s finance management platform, we wanted to adhere to a number of core design principles. Fynapse would be cloud native, modular, easy to integrate into a broader finance ecosystem, deliver the highest quality data experience and, crucially, be designed with the finance user at its core. Below, I’ve outlined some of the key design

considerations to ensure the best user experience.

Simplicity

With enough time and money, development teams can build just about anything. But when thinking about user design, simplicity goes a long way.

Development teams need to ask themselves what the client is actually trying to achieve and then find the balance between ease of use, functionality delivered, frequency of use and the cost to build. But too often, finance teams have to compromise on the user design and experience. Through customer research and data, development teams can focus on maintaining the needed balance between user experience and functionality.

One example of this in Fynapse is around the way finance users typically consume accounting and finance data. In solutions like Excel, users must move between transaction level details and balances by navigating between a series of tables.

In Fynapse, we created a visual flow of data that the user can view in one screen so they can see the entire data path from the business event level to the journal level and through to accounts. This makes investigating and interrogating the data much easier.

Seamless integration

Today’s finance architectures rely on tightly integrated technology ecosystems that provide a network of best-of-breed solutions to deliver the capabilities needed by today’s finance function.

When designing finance solutions, developers need to take into consideration the overall experience of a finance team member as they move between solutions. Developing

solutions to easily integrate with other products can help improve data quality, cross-departmental collaboration and increase the strategic value of the finance function.

In addition to integration with technology solutions from other vendors, designing a solution that is modular also allows finance teams to select what modules they need to solve their specific problem and forgo non-necessary components.

Visual consistency

Creating a user experience that is visually familiar can increase ease of use. Ensuring that various buttons and signposts appear and function the same across all screens establishes familiarity for the user. The focus should be on ensuring the screen provides the expected experience and information.

Fynapse utilizes a library of design components to help with the consistency between screens. Similarly, all of the tables have the same structure for things like headers, filters or the way you drill into account balances for details. Finally, Fynapse takes into account accessibility criteria as defined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure it can be used by everyone.

Intuitive training

One of the important design decisions we made when building Fynapse was building training and contextual help right into the solution, especially for those items we knew users were going to need to use over and over. This means users can access interactive guidance while using the solution to help them navigate the various elements.

Rather than require a user to consult technical documentation, they can click on the task they are looking to complete and there are templates

and configuration accelerators that can speed the process.

For example, when a user wants to create a balance in Fynapse, they can quickly and easily enter a bit of criteria based on what they need, and the system will create the correct balance for them. The template can be saved for later reuse, helping finance teams work more efficiently.

Conclusion

Organizations that prioritize the selection and implementation of solutions designed for the finance user can reap the benefits in the form of increased retention, operational efficiencies and a lower cost of finance and IT.

5 Minutes with...

Going beyond the business to get to know

Olivier Homps, President & Chairman of the board at FIIT Consulting.

With over 15 years’ experience in consulting for banks and insurance companies, Olivier leads FIIT Consulting with a commitment to delivering impactful financial transformation and digitalization services. Below, Olivier shares his vision for his company, perspectives on the finance function and changing technology landscape and the future he sees as an Aptitude Partner.

Name: Olivier Homps

Title: President & Chairman of the Board

Organization: FIIT Consulting

Location: Poland

Olivier Homps, President of FIIT Consulting, transitioned from a client-facing consulting role to executive leadership, steering the organisation through growth and strategic partnerships. With over 15 years of experience in consulting for banks and insurance companies, Olivier leads FIIT Consulting with a commitment to delivering impactful financial transformation and digitalisation services.

Leveraging his extensive experience, Olivier fosters relationships across the industry, including strategic partnerships, long-term engagements with clients, and synergies with other firms and industry players. To learn more about FIIT Consulting, please visit https://fiit-consulting.com

On his vision for FIIT Consulting

We started as a group of contractors – all Aptitude alumni – working on the same big transformation program. In addition to working well together, we thought there was value in our shared expertise that could benefit the wider market. There was a need on the Aptitude side as well, driven by company growth, to build out a larger pool of trained delivery partners. It was a perfect fit. So, we started FIIT Consulting to provide comprehensive support for Aptitude projects – be it around implementation, or taking over testing phases, all the way down to operational support.

Our mission and vision revolve around the conviction that Aptitude products hold the power to simplify finance transformation and finance digitalization and we are committed to leveraging our expertise in these products to make life easier for finance teams. That’s what we strive for. And I think we’ve

found this vision resonates deeply with our clients – who appreciate the value we bring and recognize how our services seamlessly complement Aptitude’s offerings.

On the changing nature of finance transformation programs

Olivier: When I started, finance transformation projects were predominantly triggered by regulatory change. Finance digitalization was seen as a big undertaking and almost always driven from the top down. So, either the regulator said, ‘you have to do this,’ and the CFO complied, or the CFO had a vision for their company and the way they wanted to take finance into the digital age and out of Excel.

But it has changed dramatically. For starters, the business and the finance function are a lot more tech savvy than they were ten years ago. There’s a lot more understanding of what products are out there and what these products can do for their day-to-day jobs. And as a result, there’s now a significant bottomup push for finance transformation, which means we’re seeing a higher volume of smaller-scale initiatives where a business unit is saying, ‘you know what, we’re going to change the way we do things compared to the group.’ Then they talk across

business units and communicate the value coming from these smaller projects that can be executed in 9-12 months and make a real difference. That’s how they get buy-in across the business. This bottom-up feed into transformation is something that didn’t exist before. There is a much bigger appetite for change.

On common finance challenges

Olivier: One of the most prevalent challenges in Banks and Insurers is the integration of systems and processes following mergers and acquisitions. Organizations that have expanded through M&A often find themselves dealing with disparate systems and disjointed processes, making it a significant hurdle to overcome, thus driving finance transformation initiatives.

On exciting tech trends

Olivier: When I started my career, most of the focus was file based. Transferring files, loading files, extracting files, producing more files. So, the whole microservice approach where you can consume data from pretty much anywhere and from pretty much any system is something that makes our lives so much easier.

And in terms of infrastructure, the whole Cloud push is something that

has been so refreshing. To be able to be onsite with a client and just jump up an environment in an hour. Now you’ve got a brand new environment that you can ramp up, assign the capacity you need to perform any kind of testing and then you can get rid of this environment. The flexibility that it offers on implementation is great.

If I’m looking into the future, how can we not talk about the increasing role of artificial intelligence in our daily operations? It’s hard to fathom at the moment how much of an impact it will have on the finance office but there are very clever people who are looking at this. I think the use of data combined with artificial intelligence in order to build predictive models and things like that is just something that I’m really excited about.

On the Aptitude/FIIT Partnership

Olivier: We were so excited to officially become an Aptitude Certified Partner! What that means for us – in addition to being a lot busier – is that we’ve got regular alignment with sales, with professional services and with the partner teams at Aptitude so that we can refine our offers and bring additional value to the client.

We’re also really excited about the prospect of Fynapse, Aptitude’s new finance management platform, because it means not only we will be able to be a service provider, but we can also start channeling our expertise into creating modules specifically for Fynapse that encapsulate our Banking and Insurance knowledge for our joint clients. We’re excited to ramp up our internal development capabilities to take advantage of this opportunity to add to the Fynapse marketplace.

“ There’s now a significant bottom-up push for finance transformation, which means we’re seeing a higher volume of smallerscale initiatives where a business unit is saying, ‘you know what, we’re going to change the way we do things compared to the group’.

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