The financial management, the architect and regulator of value creation

The finance department assists the general management in making improvements in company performance, by benefiting from new technologies and implementing streamlined processes within the other departments.

Today, they are being approached from all sides and their priorities continue to evolve.

For several years, the role of the financial department has evolved and extended more and more to include strategies that make Financial Directors the real leaders in the creation of value within an organisation. Financial departments are playing more of regulator role as they must cooperate with various  internal stakeholders, while external constraints are becoming more and more pressing.

The central role of “Chief Performance Officer” will become more meaningful over the years as he will have to take on the role of “Finance As A Service“:

• self-service data,
• real-time records,
• accounting in digitised flows.

One of the immediate challenges for finance departments is to succeed with their digitization through increased use of available technologies: AI, deep learning, cloud computing, …

The financial management tries to become more flexible and active in the development of the growth strategy and the strength of the offer for the activities, by recommending concrete actions to them. To this end, it must position itself as a partner for all the relevant parties in the company.

There are 4 key dimensions which guarantee the success of this new positioning:

• Business growth and development;
• Acceleration of innovation and transformation;
• Structuring of processes;
• Increased security of confidential financial information.

The role of architect comes about through the transformation of the financial management and more specifically through:

• Transformation of processes and of the organization ( automation of transnational flows, automation of data production, …).
• The use of new technological advancements ( big data, data, BI, ERP, AI, …).
• Improvement of financial risk management ( BFR, predictive risk analysis, …)
• Combating cyber fraud.
• The establishment of a new mode of communication (to assist and challenge projects, specifically on R&D and innovation, …).
• Talent management by the integration of new roles such as Data Scientists (taking soft skills into account).

Our consultants assist by using customized solutions, organized around key challenges:

1. Financing Business Growth
   Optimising the capacities of internal and external financing (management of corporate taxation, fiscal real estate costs, expenditures, social contributions, …)
2. Accelerating Innovation
   By mobilising the relevant financing levers in an optimal and safe manner (fiscal incentives for innovation, partial exemption from payment of withholding tax on wages for researchers) and by supervising the management of the innovation.
3. Risk Management
   Presenting scenarios of intervention on each financing avenue and assisting in the case of an audit.
4. Decision Making
   by providing monitoring elements and control tools that facilitate decision making, e.g. by planning investments as well as possible according to the resources that can be deployed.
5. Financial Process Improvement
   Optimising the operation of the Finance Department so they
   can collaborate more effectively with correlated departments.
6. Internal Operational Efficiencies
   Optimising the purchasing, the supply chain, and operations processes.