Factor: IT-Focus

The ‘IT Focus’ factor puts emphasis on the importance of automation for strengthening the finance function. The characteristics of the finance function required for this are as follows:

• sufficient annual budget to accelerate the automation and digitization of the finance function;
• automation and digitization are given a high priority.
• also important for this factor is the knowledge that financial professionals have of IT applications that could be implemented in the finance function and the organization as a whole: the finance function is aware of the latest applications and capabilities of IT programs;
• the finance function has extensive IT application knowledge;
• the finance function is able to implement the most recent IT applications.

“IT application knowledge” means knowledge of applications, i.e., how functionalities of the application can be effectively used for the improvement of work processes.

Finally, this factor contains characteristics that reflect the results of the focus on IT: all routine financial processes are fully automated; and the finance function spends less and less time on routine activities.