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Matthew Ng, ANZ Microsoft Dynamics 365 (finance & operations) GTM manager, offers up the top trends for CFOs, including the benefits of a modern finance system in the government sector.
We all know that delivering consistent, proactive and secure services is a complex job in the public sector. A rapidly changing economic landscape requires most government CFOs to manage financial resources more effectively and with clearer citizen and policy outcomes.
That’s where low-code development tools with out-of-the-box capabilities as well as the flexibility to cater for organisations’ specific needs can accelerate the journey to a single source of financial truth.
Digitalisation is the key step in a journey toward simpler, smarter, more stable finance services. Not only do departments gain powerful visibility of their data – spanning from the grand view to the granular – teams can use it to make faster, better informed, more accurate decisions. When departments move to a digitalised finance system that can weather disruptions, they look to benefit from these five areas:
1. Make smarter decisions with a single source of truth
Traditional government finance platforms often become complex over time and face end of life. This makes it difficult to accurately manage risk, deliver accountability and make informed decisions. That’s because they need to know what they’ve got before they can use it.
Consolidating and unleashing the full power of financial data with cloud technologies gives a single source of truth for finance. With accurate data, not only is it easier to see the true impact of the work an organisation does, it can be used to make smarter decisions going forward.
2. Achieve accountability with timely access to data
Accountability is a KPI of every government organisation. To achieve this, timely access to accurate data is essential.
To streamline these processes, solutions like Dynamics 365 Finance help departments develop a much-needed audit trail for compliance, ensuring transparency in the delivery of services. This type of integrated approach requires robust digital and regulatory infrastructure. With a stable core platform, departments can be sure they are getting the basics right.
3. Attract and retain talent, and allow them to be more productive
When it comes to attracting and retaining finance talent, today’s worker expects simplified, digital systems that allow hybrid work as well as increased productivity.
A clear advantage of digitalising is the smooth integration with other productivity tools, such as email and messaging platforms, creating streamlined workflows for finance teams. Staff can perform finance tasks like approving invoices and reviewing financial data directly within these tools, making finance teams more efficient.
4. Unleash efficiencies with access to automation
A digitalised finance system gives departments the right foundations to incorporate emerging technologies in the future. This means finance teams can take advantage of automation and real-time processing to drive efficiencies. This allows quicker invoice processing and allows teams to move away from repetitive, low-value tasks.
With analytical tools like Power BI, teams gain access to interactive reporting functionality quickly to identify trends and opportunities. Automation and streamlining processes remove duplication of effort, increase productivity, simplify reporting and essentially means doing much more with less.
5. Benefit from secure inter-agency collaboration
The pandemic proved that government agencies can be agile – and they gain a lot from holistic inter-departmental collaboration, resource-sharing and knowledge exchange. The challenge now is to continue this evolution. By ensuring your finance system, email client and collaboration platforms are based in a secure cloud environment, staff have comfort that information shared between departments and agencies remains safe.
Through the use of integrated systems and platforms, we’ve seen benefits from improved efficiencies in government processes, more timely access to information and more accountable financial services within departments.
Developing an advanced finance system like this requires a holistic approach, complete with robust digital and regulatory infrastructure. But moving to an integrated approach also allows finance to remove the need for shadow IT and accounting while embracing new opportunities for innovation and rapid solution development.
Ready to take the next step to modernise your finance system? Check out Top Trends for CFOs | Microsoft Dynamics 365
Read this playbook for guidance through the four steps of the IDEA approach that Microsoft has developed: Digital Transformation Playbook: Four Elements to a Successful Strategy.
