Ask a Maven
Our Mavens include some of today’s most knowledgeable, respected and highly sought-after IT transformation experts.
Ask a Maven gives The Maven Report readers a forum to ask our community pressing questions about how to harness technology for better business outcomes.
Particularly compelling questions will be answered by our panel of Mavens themselves, and may even be featured in a future edition of THE REPORT.
Our Mavens personally review and consider each reader submission. If yours is featured in an upcoming issue of The Maven Report, you’ll receive a special Maven gift—our way of saying thanks for asking a Maven.
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CURRENT QUESTION
Achieving quick finance wins when transformation is slow
Moving our financial data into a single repository is on my company’s digital transformation roadmap, but we’re not there yet. How can we be a better business partner in the meantime, when the information we need is siloed and scattered all over the place (including in people’s heads)?
Answered by Stephanie Siu, Senior Director, Data & Analytics, Ensono
A modern, integrated IT infrastructure that seamlessly collects and connects relevant data from all corners of the business is the Platonic ideal for fast, accurate financial decision making. But as you’re experiencing, finance teams don’t have the luxury of pausing analyses, recommendations and decisions until the ideal technological solution is fully implemented. We need to act in the here and now.
The Finance-as-a-Service (FaaS) approach my CFO Scott Grossman describes on page X is the answer to the first part of your question: how your organization can become a more integral, dynamic and valuable partner to the broader business. And while sophisticated platforms and highly integrated systems accelerate the pace, impact and scalability of FaaS adoption, they aren’t a prerequisite for addressing your question’s second part.
Insight Spotlight
