Leadership in a new era
How finance and IT leaders are guiding post-pandemic strategy
Finance and IT leaders face a different world in the approaching post-pandemic era. In addition to grappling with changes to their operations and processes, businesses will need to strategize in new ways, and success will depend on collaboration, visibility into spending, and building the infrastructure for an ever more connected world.
Oxford Economics and the SAP Concur business unit of SAP recently surveyed 500 finance and IT leaders at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Our research, which spanned seven countries including the US, uncovered key takeaways for both finance and IT leaders. This paper will begin with global findings and then examine US results in depth.
Global finance and IT takeaways include:
- Finance and IT leaders are playing an increasingly strategic role as pandemic-driven operational changes persist and the pace of digitization increases. Complicating matters: collaboration between functions could use improvement.
- Uncertainty about the post-pandemic world lingers. Most companies made adjustments to day-to-day processes, but many are unsure which ones will be permanent.
- Technology and culture pose dual threats. Respondents identify increasing agility as their top functional goal, but difficulties implementing changes to company culture and digitizing manual operations are top challenges.
- Decision-makers are not using technology to its fullest potential. They face difficulty gaining visibility into spending, compliance challenges, and adapting to a hybrid working environment.
The past year has demonstrated that planning can only go so far. Companies must be able to move in real time to adopt new tools and technologies and collaborate effectively despite obstacles. This is the great opportunity and challenge facing finance and IT decision-makers today.
