The Strategic CFO: Leveraging the Value of the Modern Digital Finance Function

Written by Admin | Jan 29, 2025 5:43:03 PM

Finance and Accounts Payable functions are crucial to guiding healthy, prosperous organisations. By leveraging automation and advanced technology, forward-thinking businesses are enhancing efficiency, increasing accuracy, and boosting profitability.
Download our latest whitepaper to explore the key benefits finance teams can unlock by embracing a modern, digital finance function.

Exclusive Insights from Finance Leaders:

To understand the state of finance transformation, Open ECX partnered with Research Without Barriers to survey 810 senior finance leaders from organisations with over 250 employees. Our findings reveal:

A surprising number of businesses still rely on outdated, error-prone systems.
The impact of these systems on productivity, talent retention, supplier relationships, and fraud prevention.
How automated AP processes transform finance teams, unlocking greater efficiency and strategic impact.

Discover actionable insights into how modern finance teams leverage automation to thrive, and see where your organisation stands on the path to digital transformation.

" Tools and talent are the key. Reducing costs and increasing productivity while building good supplier relationships is easier and quicker to achieve with fully automated, no-touch processes that utilise the latest technology."

Nathan Ollier, CEO at Open ECX

Overview

Businesses face rising costs, supply chain issues, and growing sustainability pressures. With leaner operations a priority, finance teams must shift from manual tasks to strategic impact. Can automation unlock hidden value? Our survey of UK businesses uncovers both the challenges and opportunities of the modern finance function.

Reliability on OCR

Many finance teams rely on outdated or partially automated systems that require frequent manual corrections, wasting time and limiting productivity. Partial automation often results in errors, omissions, and inefficiencies, preventing teams from focusing on higher-value tasks. A reliable system must deliver 100% accuracy to eliminate these challenges.

Our survey revealed:

78% of businesses manually intervene in 21%-80% of supplier invoices, with 31% intervening in at least three out of five invoices.
Several industries report manual intervention rates exceeding 50%.
Only 13% of respondents manually intervened in fewer than 20% of invoices.

To address these challenges, 32% of CFOs are exploring AI and machine learning (ML) for supplier invoice processing. However, AI's effectiveness depends on clean, well-organised data. Without modern, fully automated systems, businesses cannot leverage AI’s potential or eliminate inefficiencies.

Utilising Modern Technology to Attract and Retain Talent

Finance leaders consistently cite talent acquisition and retention as a top business challenge. Modern professionals expect cutting-edge digital tools to support their efficiency and career growth, and without them, businesses struggle to attract and retain top talent.

Key findings from our survey:

43% of finance leaders say attracting and retaining talent is their biggest overall challenge, rising to over 60% in various sectors.
Legacy systems are a significant retention issue, with 25% of leaders admitting they struggle to keep staff due to outdated technology.
35% of finance teams struggle with retention, rising to over 40% across multiple sectors.

Manual and repetitive tasks, such as supplier statement reconciliation, negatively impact employee retention and morale. More than 54% of leaders report that manual statement reconciliation takes over a week. Leaders who fail to provide modern tools and training risk losing talent to competitors.

Payment Delays and Errors are Straining Supplier Relationships

Supplier relationships are vital for smooth operations, yet manual processes and payment delays often strain this trust, disrupting production, cash flow, and customer satisfaction. Finance teams across various industries anticipate further supplier relationship challenges in the coming year.

Smaller businesses face even greater risks, with over a third highlighting supplier issues compared to larger organisations. Late payments remain a critical problem, costing SMEs an average of £22,000 annually and leading to the closure of 50,000 businesses each year, according to UK government data.

Finance Leaders Must Take Charge of Fraud Prevention

Outdated finance processes and manual invoice handling are increasing fraud risks and harming supplier relationships. With fraud costing billions, CFOs are turning to digital solutions, but progress is slow without full C-suite support.

Automation streamlines operations, reduces errors, and enhances fraud prevention, helping finance teams protect their organisations and strengthen supplier relationships.

Barriers to higher productivity

The modern CFO drives strategy through data, but outdated AP technology holds them back. Budget constraints are the biggest barrier to digital transformation, with 59% of finance leaders citing funding challenges—rising to almost 70% in some industries. A lack of time, skills, and technology further limits productivity and growth.

To move forward, CFOs must build a strong case for digital solutions that boost efficiency and profitability.

The Future-focused CFO

The CFO’s role has transformed into a key driver of business strategy, but outdated technology is holding back progress. Cloud-based solutions improve security, forecasting, and fraud prevention while empowering teams to focus on high-value tasks.

Businesses embracing digital transformation gain a competitive edge—attracting top talent, strengthening supplier relationships, and reducing costs. Download the whitepaper to uncover how automation can help finance teams tackle their biggest challenges and unlock new opportunities.

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