Innovation geared towards CFOs: The reality of today and outlook for tomorrow in 6 points

As CFO, you have to get to grips with and make the most of the technology available to you. But what considerations should guide your decisions? And which approach is best? Raphaël Nahum, CFO at Pennylane, Sébastien Marchon, CEO at Rydoo and Sonia Boudier, Chief Strategy & Technology Officer at iBanFirst, discuss the reality of CFO-centric innovation — and its future prospects.

Innovation boosts talent attraction and retention

In the finance industry, certain accounting and reporting tasks have become trivial and will become even more so with the arrival of electronic invoicing. CFOs need to encourage skills development among their team members. By doing so, they’re able to retain talent and make the company more attractive as an employer. Sébastien Marchon argues that: “We need to work just as hard on our employee value proposition as we do on our customer value proposition. And I firmly believe that the technologies and tools deployed within the company have a huge impact on its employee value proposition”. They instil a sense of pride among team members and help to build an ultra-modern image of the business. But you need to make sure these tools are truly effective. Only then can they really enhance an individual’s well-being. Reducing the amount of time an employee spends on administrative tasks means improving their quality of life — not just at work but also in their personal lives. “The tools and technologies a CFO chooses to adopt will, in many cases, resonate beyond the financial role — they’ll affect peoples’ lives and the way in which people perceive the company”, says Marchon.

Innovation to the rescue of cash management

A lack of liquidity is the number one cause of business failure — and the number one biggest fear for CFOs. This dread can be alleviated by using a tool that connects your company's various accounts to monitor cash flow and margins and to invoice customers properly. “Invoicing customers in a timely manner is absolutely essential”, insists Raphaël Nahum. “It’s now possible to make use of payment solutions that are natively integrated with your invoicing processes. These solutions can be in the form of standing orders, links to help customers pay more rapidly or transfers”, he adds. 

Of course, once the invoice has been sent, the aim is to get paid. And the market is teeming with tools that can send out automatic reminders. As always, interoperability is a key factor in the choice of solution.

Innovation to secure international exposure

“In any company, the finance department must take account of macroeconomic and geopolitical criteria. But when a company operates internationally, the situation is even more acute”, emphasises Sonia Boudier. “The risks are all the greater for SMEs which, by definition, have fewer employees with the expertise needed to address international risks.” 

Again, this is where innovation can add value: You can use a payment platform to make and receive payments in several currencies but also manage currency risk. This provides reassurance while also making life easier

What about AI? It's already saving us an enormous amount of time

"AI isn’t the future anymore — it's already here", says Sébastien Marchon. He uses business expenses as an example: AI can help you understand data and perform tasks that humans can’t, like spotting duplicates of receipts for the same service issued months apart, or almost instantly translating receipts in a foreign language (even a complex one like Mandarin) and therefore identifying purchases or services that don’t meet expense guidelines. 

And while end users and financial controllers can save a great deal of time with AI-enabled expense management tools, it’s actually the business’s processes that benefit the most, as AI is able to perform many tasks quicker than humans. 

Humans remain in the loop when it comes to validation, of course. But they can spend more time doing what they do best, which includes complex reasoning and everything relating to emotions and creativity. 

Productivity gains across the board thanks to AI

The first step to boosting productivity is a widely adopted one: Personal, everyday use of AI to enhance your emails or prepare presentations. The next skill to learn is how to write a prompt, i.e. being able to explain to AI what you really want in order to obtain the most satisfactory result. 

The second step is to develop an in-house AI strategy. For example, AI aggregators could be linking up internal management processes and knowledge bases to improve customer success. If the company doesn’t have a dedicated data analyst in-house, AI can transform questions into SQL queries. For a strategy to transform a business, it needs to be tailored to the business’s processes and departments. Sonia Boudier says: “[This] requires commando teams who can come up with solutions to optimise operations and improve the efficiency of each business line”, such as analysing customer service calls or cash flow issues. 

The third step is incorporating AI into the company’s value proposition. iBanFirst, for example, has developed functional tools using AI for invoice recognition to optimise the payment process. 

All three speakers agree that the biggest transformation of finance departments has yet to take place. 

The third wave of AI and the finance department: Making a business plan in seconds!

The speakers believe that finance departments have yet to experience the most transformational wave of AI. The first was the language wave, followed by the image wave. The data / digital wave is about to hit and will transform everything for finance professionals. “Today, we can obtain a ten-line summary of a presentation in seconds by running it through ChatGPT. Tomorrow, we’ll be able to do the same thing with a business plan”, suggests Marchon.  

C-level executives need to be aware of this to keep their organisations agile and able to handle what’s coming. This means encouraging AI usage among team members by demonstrating different use cases on a regular basis. In short, explaining how AI adds value for employees. As Raphaël Nahum puts it: “AI is clearly employer branding”. It should be used to improve working conditions and is going to transform every job. CFOs need to anticipate this and be prepared, as finance roles are “highly eligible for AI transformation”, notes Sonia Boudier.  

These discussions took place during a roundtable event at the iBanFirst Summit 2024 in Paris. To catch the conversation and the Q&A session in full, watch a replay of the iBanFirst Summit 2024 here.