Workday Enterprise Strategy VP Mark Nittler explains the limitations of current financial technology. The fintech that was originally made to automate transactions and financial accounting is now preventing finance departments from realizing its ultimate goal, to be a better business partner. He views today’s financial function as having three areas of responsibility: Transaction processing and accounting, business partnership, and compliance and control. Finance leaders face frustration as their teams have little time to nurture the partnerships their companies truly need since they focus on the other areas.
In this data-driven age, finance is being asked to provide the broader company with contextual information that can actively influence decision-making and the current technology is not able to do this, so it’s seemingly hopeless. That is, unless you throw money at Workday, and Nittler would really like to let you know that it enables business agility by combining planning, transaction processing, governance, accounting, reporting, and analytics into a single, easy-to-manage system. Promotional rhetoric aside, I do see the value in this new approach into the digital transformation of fintech is advantageous. Companies that can quickly bring together actionable information about their money and people in a system that can evolve as their business changes are sure to have a competitive advantage.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/workday/2017/02/13/back-to-the-future-building-financial-transformations-missing-link/#6873ee602974