Close, Consolidate and Report
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Close, Consolidate and Report Point of view on Enabling Technologies December 2016 © 2016 Deloitte The Netherlands 1 Introduction Finance Organization of the future Wheel of Finance The future of Finance: As we look at What does the future hold for the the future of Finance, it’s important to Finance function? Today’s Finance consider two things: How Finance organizations are more then ever under delivers value to the organization, and pressure to deliver value to the business what enables the Finance function to do and in parallel operate within a highly so. cost-efficient and most-effective delivery model. The introduction of new Digital How Finance delivers value: In our technologies is likely to be the view, Finance delivers value through most important factor impacting the three types of services: Operational Finance function. Finance, Business Finance and Specialized Finance. Think transactional, Digital technologies radically transform strategic and highly specialized. how the business and it’s Finance function delivers value. Digital Finance What enables Finance: Underpinning utilizes disruptive technology, data, these three services are what we call innovation, and people to elevate and Finance enablers. These enablers differentiate the capabilities of the include the organizational structure and Finance function. Digital requires the Finance team’s talent; the organizations to think and act differently information, systems and data available in order to generate value. to the Finance group, and the processes and policies that enable the Finance The ability of CFOs to leverage Digital team to monitor risk and stay on top of technologies to position their future regulatory obligations. Finance function will determine the future of their organizations. © 2016 Deloitte The Netherlands 2 Operational Finance A journey towards a Digitalized Operational Finance © 2016 Deloitte The Netherlands Operational Finance A journey towards a Digitalized Operational Finance Wheel of Finance Rise of the Finance Factory: Finance some time. However we expect that will be a utility function where day-to- Finance teams will be transformed by day transactional finance — from the rising use of robotics, mobile devices payables, receivables and invoices to and cloud computing. treasury transfers, journals, capital expenditures and the close cycle — will Close, Consolidate and Report: One be managed centrally in “Finance of the transactional Finance processes is Factories”. These Finance Factories are the process by which organizations fully automated/robotized process produce their internal management centers with continuous control and reports and external financial process visualization tools monitoring statements. In this Point of View we real-time on process exceptions. focus on Finance technology trends and enabling technologies providing What else: There’s no paper, solutions for today’s Close, Consolidate anywhere. Employees use cloud-based and Report challenges, in particular the apps on mobile devices to transact their Close process. business, and highly standardized, workflow-enabled business processes Reviewing the literature, global trends, handle the rest. Finance managers innovations and based on conversations receive event-driven, real-time updates with solution providers about how they thanks to new integration tools and see Finance evolving, we developed our advances in in-memory processing. perspective on the future of Finance and the Close, Consolidate and Report Information & Systems: Integrated process. ERP systems will remain the backbone of companies’ financial systems for © 2016 Deloitte The Netherlands 4 The Evolution of Automation Automation continuum range from enabling strategies that improve parts of business processes to sophisticated technologies with cognitive elements Maturing Emerging Complexity Time Robotic Process Intelligent Artificial Automation Automation Intelligence Software used to capture and interpret existing Automate non routine tasks involving intuition, “The theory and development of computer applications for the purpose of automating judgment, creativity, persuasion, or problem systems able to perform tasks that transaction processing, data manipulation, and solving normally require human intelligence” communication across multiple IT systems Automate this: The business leader’s guide to Cognitive Technologies, the real opportunities for The robots are coming, Deloitte Financial Services robotic and intelligent automation, Service Delivery business, Deloitte Review, issue 16, 2015 White Paper, 2015 Transformation, Deloitte, 2015 . Screen scraping data collection . Data input and output in any format . Natural language recognition and . Rules based business process management . Pattern recognition within unstructured data processing . Tactical toolset to automate repetitive tasks . Replication of judgment based tasks . Dealing with unstructured super data sets . Cheaper and faster step towards process . Basic learning capabilities for continuous efficiency improvement to quality and speed . Hypothesis based predictive analysis . Self-learning rules continuously rewritten to improve performance Source: Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies | Note: Trends across time are not to scale © 2016 Deloitte The Netherlands 5 What could Digital look like for Operational Finance? Most processes could be centralized into “Finance Factories” providing oversight and continuous improvement over highly automated activities Imagine a future where… Digital technologies are used to advance Finance • Advances in technologies give rise to Blockchain • Increased transparency to all transactions via a centralized shared service “Factories” distributed ledger which perform the majority of transactional • Increased speed of exchange between entities processing (e.g. payroll) while reducing the number of intermediaries (and the costs associated) to accelerate data • Factories are overseen by a Finance Control consolidation and reporting Center that monitors process • Blend teams involved in payment processing performance, exceptions and service levels for both people and Robotic Process RPA • Reduced labor required across all routine (rule Automation (RPA) bots. These processes are based) financial transactions completely web, workflow, and self-serve • Increased need for change management due to enabled dramatic revision of talent models • Event-driven, real-time information Cognitive updates and continuous process • Self-correct repetitive tasks such as AP/AR, improvement are made possible thanks to leading to reduced costs and improved accuracy advances with in-memory processing and • Enables identification, recovery, and reduction of integration tools overpayments in high volume, complex transactional data environments • The close cycle becomes nearly continuous thanks to the advent of visual In-Memory • Enhanced visibility into information and more close-management tools, integrated sub- efficient processes ledgers, and the automation of consolidation • Faster execution of transactional processes such and intercompany transfers as AP/AR and Travel & Expenses • CFOs are no longer focused on processing Cloud • Shortened close cycles and reduction of lagging data, and instead leverage leading reconciliations/data entry through single platform analytics to make key decisions implementation • Increased access to more efficient, well defined data models © 2016 Deloitte The Netherlands 6 Where should organizations first focus on? Driving the Digital agenda toward value creation requires an evaluation of technologies according to the organization‘s needs Level of Mobilization Maturity Benefits Impact Complexity Automation of low and medium complex Opening Peaking Declining Mature High processes resulting in three to ten times Highest ROI can be found in RPA Medium more operational efficiency gains depending transaction intensive processes Low on application Automation of medium and high complex Integrating RPA and cognitive RPA with Opening Peaking Declining Mature High processes resulting in true process exception predictions is at the leading edge of Cognitive Medium management; robots learn and evolve as applications and requires Finance Science Low new scenarios are presented workers to develop new skillsets Deeper insights allow Finance to enhance Cross disciplinary support required Opening Peaking Declining Mature business capabilities and move to granular to develop and manage High Cognitive exception management; can be a driver to technological and analytics Medium Computing improve enterprise value and increase speed platform; new skills are required in Low to insight the Finance organization Exponentially faster transaction and BI Requires organizations to refocus Opening Peaking Declining Mature processing allows moment in time close and High In-Memory processes to support shorter cycle performance analysis; allows organizational Medium Computing times; adoption is still in early data to be mined in real time to support Low stages business strategy Opening Peaking Declining Mature Distributed ledger allows increased Early stages of adoption; High transparency of transactions, reduced Blockchain commercially viable products are Medium auditing burden, and changes payment Low still evolving processing (AR/AP) Machine driven insights to sense patterns Opening Peaking Declining Mature High Insight and trends in data, allowing for the Early stages of adoption; use cases Medium Generation automation of repetitive