Company insight
Harness the power of AI and data
Driven by transformation, modern CFOs increasingly began relying on proactive financial modelling. Gordon Stuart and Alistair Gurney from Unit4 explain how the company can help businesses everywhere ride the financial storm.
FOs know better than most that time waits for no one. The rate of change was already gathering pace before the impact of Covid-19, which turbocharged a period of disruption few had ever witnessed. As working patterns changed overnight and finance teams scrambled to reassess forecasts and models, battling to steer the ship away from the rocks, it soon became clear that the need to take a more proactive approach to financial modelling was vital to survival.
C The new wave
For Gordon Stuart, CFO of Unit4, the challenges posed over the past 18 months have simply underlined what he already knew: that the new wave of tech tools clustered under the banner of AI and machine learning will become central elements of the future finance function. “Certainly, what’s happening now – and
it’s been accelerated during the pandemic – is a growing role for AI in forecasting,” Stuart says. “That technology enables us
As Gordon Stuart explains, artificial intelligence has transformed his role as CFO and the types of skills required for financial planning and analysis.
the precision and predictive nature of AI-driven forecasting tools are giving leaders a far greater understanding not only of the risks their businesses face, but also how best to mitigate them.
“Certainly, what’s happening now [...] is a growing role for AI in forecasting. That technology enables us to more rapidly assess the implication of change: whereas you used to have to grind through scenario after scenario, with AI you can get the full spectrum of outcomes that might occur.”
to more rapidly assess the implication of change: whereas you used to have to grind through scenario after scenario, with AI you can get the full spectrum of outcomes that might occur.”
Stuart explains that, in his 20 years as a CFO, he has often encountered optimism bias, whereby executives in business hope for the best thing to happen and push away the bad things that might. Now, however,
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As Stuart puts it: “People don’t want to go to the bad place, but by using these tools that are much more objective in the modelling they use, you can get to the full spectrum much quicker – and then take action to influence that.”
A changing role
For Stuart, harnessing the power of AI – and the analytic and predictive tools it
offers – has been transformative for him as CFO. That includes changes to the kinds of skill sets he values when building the Unit4 team.
“Looking at it from a CFO perspective, the skill sets needed in FP&A [financial planning and analysis] are increasingly becoming focused more on business insight, analysis and being able to understand the pattern and numbers, explain the story and communicate, as well as the discipline around creating a good planning model,” he says. “FP&A is the external face of finance. It’s the bit that has more of a direct impact on how the business is run. And that’s where we’re seeing some really exciting things happening with new technology.” In Stuart’s view, the traditional accounting function focuses on aspects that the rest of the business shouldn’t even be aware of if it’s working well. “If I try to engage any of our leadership team with anything to do with statutory accounts, tax or Treasury, they don’t see how it’s relevant to what they do,” he continues.
Finance Director Europe /
www.ns-businesshub.com
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