Finance Transformation Consultants: What They Do & How They Help
Growing your business in today’s ever-evolving financial landscape requires the development of a finance function that can withstand the waters of change while providing leadership with more support for strategic decision making.
Oftentimes, it can be beneficial to rework your finance function with the help of a trusted partner. As experts in helping businesses drive successful transformations, we’ve outlined some essential information regarding finance transformation consultants.
Things to know about Finance Transformation Consultants:
- What is Finance Transformation?
- What does a Finance Transformation Consultant do?
- What are the benefits of hiring a Finance Transformation Consultant?
- When should you hire a Finance Transformation Consultant?
What is Finance Transformation?
Finance transformation is the process of enhancing and optimizing an organization’s finance function by restructuring financial processes, integrating new technologies and utilizing proven tools and methodologies to drive strategic decision making.
The specific ways in which an organization undergoes finance transformation will depend largely on their industry, size, complexity and goals.
Common examples of Finance Transformation activities:
- Process standardization, optimization and automation
- Integration of new technology, tools or applications
- Financial planning and analysis
- Reorganization of budgeting, forecasting and financial planning capabilities
- Cost optimization and management
- Compliance with laws and regulations
What does a Finance Transformation Consultant do?
While the duties of a finance transformation consultant can vary quite greatly depending on an organization’s individual needs, their main role is to provide guidance for the successful execution of a finance transformation project.
Whether an organization needs to rework their budgeting or forecasting procedures or implement tools that provide more real-time visibility into financial ongoings, finance transformation consultants act as a key partner in helping businesses understand how to make their processes more efficient and set the stage for future growth and scale.
Skills & duties of Finance Transformation Consultants:
- Assessing an organization’s current finance function and establishing a plan of corrective action, including developing roadmaps for new implementations.
- Optimizing and automating finance-related processes.
- Ensuring new processes are in adherence with laws, regulations, standards and best practices.
- Driving successful collaboration across teams and providing change management solutions as processes are reworked.
- Testing systems and processes to ensure correct and effective functionality.
- Continuously monitoring performance to assess the impact and effectiveness of the transformation.
What are the benefits of hiring a Finance Transformation Consultant?
- Ensures the development of a scalable and sustainable finance function.
- Provides more real-time visibility into financial and operational ongoings.
- Time and money saved as processes are optimized and/or automated.
- A reduction in risk as compliance with laws, regulations, standards and best practices is established.
- Streamlined communication and collaboration across teams.
When should you hire a Finance Transformation Consultant?
Making the decision to hire a finance transformation consultant requires a careful analysis of your business’s current needs, goals and available resources.
However, at any stage of your lifecycle, finance transformation consultants act as a central partner in providing the strategic decision making support you need to develop a strong finance function and successfully navigate growth and change.
Signs it’s time to hire a Finance Transformation Consultant:
- Your organization is running into issues with process inefficiencies that cause delays and incur additional costs.
- It’s too difficult or time-consuming to generate timely and accurate financial information.
- You’re undergoing a period of rapid growth or change and your systems and processes are outdated or require rework.
- It’s too difficult or confusing to ensure adherence with laws, regulations, standards and best practices.
- You’re embarking on a strategic transaction such as M&A or IPO and you need more support for strategic decision making.
