The essential role of CFOs in driving AI adoption

By Thomas Sutter, Industry Director, Finance & Global Solutions, Oracle NetSuite

While artificial intelligence (AI) is leading a revolution in productivity and efficiency, the pace of organisational change to adapt to it still catching up. This is understandable to an extent – finance teams operate within complex regulatory environments and often rely on legacy systems that are difficult to augment with AI capabilities.

However, the potential of AI for finance teams is nonetheless significant. This transformative wave is propelled through the integration of cutting-edge technologies, which include machine learning algorithms, data analytics, and predictive modelling. These advancements can help automate crucial but manual and time-consuming tasks like reporting or invoice processing. But, more impressively, it has the potential to elevate the work of finance teams, from providing sophisticated insights that strengthen fraud detection and prevention efforts, to predicting future financial trends like cash flow and revenue to inform strategic planning.

Admittedly, implementing this technology takes time and requires strategy and dedicated leadership from the organisation. While CIOs and CTOs might come to mind as the natural candidates here, we cannot overlook the crucial role of the CFO in this transition.

The importance of the CFO

The role of the CFO plays a pivotal role in AI adoption for finance teams, acting as both a strategic leader and a champion for innovation. The CFO’s deep understanding of financial operations, coupled with their technical acumen and strategic oversight can help ensure that AI is implemented in a way that aligns with the organisation’s goals, compliance standards, and risk management practices.

Clear leadership from the CFO is crucial for setting a vision for AI integration. They are ideally placed to guide the process by investing in the right technology, upskilling employees, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation.

The value of continuous learning and improvement

It is important to ensure that employees are equipped with the necessary competencies and expertise to successfully utilise and innovate their businesses with the latest innovations in AI.

CFOs play a critical role in making this possible, especially as AI capabilities continue to advance. At its best, AI can act as a powerful skill multiplier for finance professionals. CFOs can unlock this potential by establishing a robust framework for training and skill development within their teams as well as the broader organisation. This includes investing in resources to upskill employees and providing opportunities for ongoing learning to keep teams in line with evolving AI capabilities. 

Furthermore, CFOs should direct the integration of AI within their organisations by identifying the critical areas where it can add the most value. This includes automating routine tasks, optimising data analysis, and streamlining decision-making processes. Aligning AI adoption and implementation with the organisation’s overall strategic goals allows for the development of a cohesive roadmap.

Fostering cross-departmental collaboration

Beyond improving their own teams, CFOs can reap significant benefits from cross-departmental AI adoption, and they are well placed to take a proactive role in driving this initiative throughout their organisation. Working closely with other internal leaders and stakeholders, CFOs can help establish a collaborative and data-sharing culture that maximises the benefits of AI.

For example, by sharing financial insights with marketing and sales teams, CFOs can help develop more effective strategies and improve overall business performance. The alignment of goals and data across the enterprise allows for a more comprehensive approach to AI adoption, resulting in better collaboration while at the same time fostering an innovative culture.

With these measures in place, finance departments can leverage the benefits of AI to innovate their solutions. Luckily, unlocking the potential of AI also does not require busy CFOs to oversee the development of AI solutions in-house either. Instead, they can focus on ensuring their organisations are enjoying the productivity gains by using an out-of-the-box AI solution.

Towards an AI-enabled future The role of the CFO cannot be overlooked in an organisation’s AI adoption journey. They are ideally placed to lead their organisation towards adopting these powerful technologies, and ensuring all employees can reap the boosts to productivity and efficiency alike. As artificial intelligence continues its rapid advance, it will only get more important for leaders within a business to get ahead of this curve to ensure their business remains competitive.