Simplifying Digital Transformations

By Ogo Nwanyanwu, Research Director, Finance & Financial Automation

Potential “Analysis Paralysis” Slowing Digital Transformation Strategy 

Many organizations still operate elaborate technology landscapes built on legacy systems supported by outdated deployment strategies. Concurrently, both finance and IT professionals, want to avoid lengthy innovation roadmaps, prior to realizing ROI on technology investments. Decision-makers at these organizations, caught between the two constraints, can struggle to provide a clear business case. Even more challenging is the desire to build cross-functional alignment for a digital transformation strategy that achieves C-suite’s vision for a technology system of the future. Overall, system design decision touchpoints and varied roadmap considerations can translate into “analysis paralysis.”  

Data from our SAPinsider Benchmark Report: SAP S/4HANA Finance and Central Finance, points to potential “analysis paralysis” at organizations, as over 51% of respondents, remain in the evaluation phase for SAP S/4HANA CFIN. Less than 40% of respondents define their organization’s current S/4HANA CFIN adoption phase, as either running a proof-of-concept, currently implementing, or already in use.   

To better understand, how organizations with unique, complicated technology challenges are working to avoid elongated evaluation periods and reduce complexity by addressing core finance functions first, SAPinsider sat down with Roy Duffin, Managing Director at Accenture. Duffin leads Accenture’s SAP S/4HANA Central Finance capabilities in North America. You can watch the video of the conversation here:

Link to Video Technology Insight: Video Q&A with Roy Duffin, Managing Director, Accenture

How Complex Technology Landscapes Challenge Decision-Makers 

New innovative business models and differentiated products operating on a global scale, ensure digital transformation journeys remain unique to the organization. Yet, decision-makers are often confronted with similar technical challenges, that may include:  

• legacy on-premises system running on multiple ERP platforms  
• several customizations and bolt-on per business unit  
• rigid integrations of various business applications  
• siloed workflows and manual process  
• deployment on multiple instances across geographic areas.

As a result, the evaluation process itself can become a headwind to innovation, as Duffin points out “that desire to move fast is actually met by the reality of very complex financial technology landscapes.”  SAP S/4HANA CFIN can simplify digital transformation roadmaps by consolidating financial transactions from multiple legacy ERP systems, SAP or non-SAP, into a harmonized data format in the Universal Journal. This provides CFOs with a simplified critical first step for delivering near-term ROI and business case support for broad financial technology evolution.  

During the conversation, Duffin acknowledges recent economic disruptions as a key factor, driving C-suites to rethink core finance functions within their organizations, as he notes, “if you look at the past year, especially with the pandemic, we’ve certainly seen that be a catalyst for the finance function in general.” In response, CFOs are reflecting pressure for their role and downstream finance/accounting resources, to work more cross-functionally and deliver growth-oriented value upstream to C-suite decision makers.   

How Central Finance Offers Flexible Launch Point for Digital Transformations

Adopting SAP S/4HANA CFIN provides access to all financial transaction information in a single view, generating real-time visibility and delivering valuable insight. The unlocking of finance and accounting resources allows an organization’s workforce to focus on operational intelligence tasks that directly impact growth initiatives.   

Corporate transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, represent high-value growth initiatives where the integration of disparate financial systems is a clear use case for SAP S/4HANA CFIN.  For finance and accounting teams to efficiently achieve targeted deal synergies, data centralization and flexible reporting structures are requirements for end-to-end visibility. Duffin suggests, “the desire to really move fast and that notion of speed is becoming a differentiator for CFO’s.” Furthermore, to “move fast” and add strategic value, “CFO’s want visibility from systems that are poorly integrated or siloed” according to the Managing Director from Accenture.  

In our research, clean and harmonized data was the “most important” or “important” factor (83% of respondents) related to their organization’s SAP S/4HANA CFIN strategy, followed by universal journal or single point of truth for financial data (80% of respondents). This data confirms Roy’s recent experience at Accenture, engaging multinational companies to understand their unique technology value drivers and develop a roadmap that delivers near-term ROI.    

SAP S/4HANA CFIN can offer CFOs the capacity to define creative deployment strategies and target specific needs to enhance core finance functions. Whether that is a narrow streamlining of financial operations to achieve visibility or investing in a large-scale digital transformation effort to improve automation for AI and analytics, SAP S/4HANA CFIN can simplify the process for CFO’s to deliver operational responsiveness, notes Roy, “We see Central Finance playing a big role because you’re not committing to a very large-scale massive transformation across all of your functions. It really lets you start with finance, build a road map that can be value driven, but also flexible at the same time. It gets our clients moving on their journey at their own pace and really start to see value quickly.”  

Conversations with our SAPinsider community members, point to end-to-end visibility across lines of business as a key priority for their organizations. SAP S/4HANA CFIN can provide the critical first step to achieve valuable financial insight and enhanced operational agility. 

What does this mean for SAPinsiders? 

CFOs aiming to standardize financial data, aggregate all business transactions and automate financial processes with the implementation of SAP S/4HANA CFIN, should have a clear understanding of the following digital transformation considerations:  

Understanding the vision. Digital transformations require a sharp vision to future proof technology against unknown pressures. Just as critical, is the need to break down that vision into manageable parts and have a contingency plan in place for both, external and internal disruptions to the innovation roadmap. 

Importance of teamwork. Cross-functional alignment in the planning process for technology transformations can support initiatives to create visibility across business units.  Engaging the experience and expertise of professionals operating within the core functions of each line of business remains key.  

Preparation is key. Echoing Duffin’s statement, “No (digital transformation) journey is going to be the same and it takes a lot of preparation. It takes a lot of work to define what is your clearly defined value case.” To confirm the “value case,” IT teams should deliver proof of concepts and prototypes that validate designs and corroborate data flows that will provide the technical foundation. 

Culture for adoption. Ensure the organization is ready for change. Automation is central to digital transformations and requires buy-in from department professionals to maximize value. Change management from the top to provide sufficient governance and controls down to robust training can help embed innovation, enhancing the organization’s digital transformation strategy.