Video transcript: Put finance at the heart of your organisation

Transcript

What's driving transformation in the finance function?

Simon Seymour
Well Mark I think it’s fair to say that the speed of change is much faster today than ever. There’s greater uncertainty in the world. Technology is transforming very, very quickly and the CFO is at the front of that trying to navigate the organisation through you know, what do I do, how do I respond and how do I make money in these turbulent times.

I sort of see finance as catching that and saying where do I play and what do I do. So actually, what is the opportunity for me to drive and reshape the organisation and how do I critically get my finance function in shape to deliver on that agenda.

Mark Chalfen
I completely agree Simon. I think focusing on where you are today, understanding your strengths and weaknesses and then trying to grow beyond that, looking beyond what you do today and actually understanding what is out there in the market - is there any new tech that can support you, how can a shared service centre improve your performance, so just always looking forward.

What should organisations consider before embarking on a finance transformation?

Simon Seymour
Well I guess one of the challenges is everyone sort of has the same trajectory in terms of building a world class finance function but everyone's starting in a different place, right
so you don't really know until you take stock exactly what you've got and how reusable it is and where you need to invest.

So I think one of the challenges, isn't it, is trying to work out what are the right types of interventions how do I get bang for buck in terms of my investment and actually critically, in a technology-enabled world, actually how do I get the best value out of the technology spend to make sure that I'm set up for a future.

Mark Chalfen
Yeah and a lot of people will focus just on technology in terms of finance transformation
but you need to think a lot broader than that. Technology should be the enabler to change your team and your staff, to change your data and the way that you report. So there should be some focus on technology but that should be the enabler to actually drive that transformation through.

How does PwC help clients achieve sustainable outcomes?

Simon Seymour
Well I guess Mark, PwC’s brand is well known for finance but I think it’s important to stress actually we’re a full service end-to-end life cycle support partner. That means that we’re deep in industries, it means we understand the technology, we understand tax, treasury and some of the specialist functions around finance and we can bring that all together in a value package which helps our clients on the whole journey.

Mark Chalfen
I completely agree. I think that actually having experts from a range of different fields
be that change, be that process, be that technology, or tax and risk providing a single team that can solve all of those issues and challenges to create a single roadmap for a client, I think that that is super powerful and that’s exactly where our clients are calling upon PwC to support them on their finance transformation journey.