Reimagining Finance: Driving Value Via Digital Business Ecosystems

Connecting Customers, Vendors and Employees in the ServiceNow^® Platform

As more organizations evaluate how to reshape their processes to fit current needs, they begin to understand the value of digital business ecosystems. These platforms drive continuous collaboration across the entire organization — a crucial element required in today’s business environment. With the continuing demand for remote or hybrid workspaces, C-Suite executives are investing in digital transformation agendas that maximize enterprise business agility.

Leading enterprises are focusing heavily on driving change in the Office of Finance to improve finance processes, by standardizing and automating tedious, repetitive tasks, to allow finance and accounting (F&A) teams to successfully support the entire organization through higher-value initiatives such as gathering and distributing actionable financial insights to bolster decision-making in every department.

Because the Office of the CFO has typically been siloed from the rest of the organization, bringing the Office of Finance into a digital business ecosystem connects these teams to every other department in the enterprise, making the close and its insights more visible to the broader teams in a way it never has been before.

Legal, HR, procurement and other teams have already digitized and been brought into collaborative ecosystems through digital workflow automation technology such as the ServiceNow^® platform, but never the Office of the CFO. Imagine what enterprises could drive in their respective marketplaces with a fully connected, collaborative digital ecosystem.

Exploring the Art of the Possible: The Value that a Digital Business Ecosystem Delivers

The financial close has historically been completed manually through email, phone, SharePoint files and other methods. Digital workflow automation, combined with a complete Record to Report solution, inside the collaborative business ecosystem provided by the ServiceNow Platform, leverages a mature, robust set of controls with deep automation and integration capabilities that allow for efficiency and collaboration within the financial close like never before, whether in-person or virtual.

And when key aspects of the close cycle are made visible to broader enterprise teams to collaborate sooner in the process, it establishes accountability to drive better data.

Better data, in turn, cultivates more accurate, effective decisions and forms a competitive set of financials that yield the highest impact.

Not only that, but ServiceNow clients could experience unique benefits that would drive better experiences for their customers, employees and vendors.

Effective Enterprise Service Management

Integrating finance services in the Now Platform^® not only enhances workflows across every department, but it also allows more self-service help for employees. For example, communities can come together in the business ecosystem to ask the Office of Finance questions and get answers quickly. Virtual agents can influence decision-making and improve finance processes in the Office of the CFO based on questions asked by employees, customers and vendors.

The Office of Finance has always been a critical hub of activity, and now it can function more effectively in that role for the entire enterprise.

Connect All Teams That Affect Enterprise Financial Integrity

For example, suppliers commonly want to know if their invoice is paid on accounts payable. What if there was a portal to facilitate that connection between employees, vendors and customers? Suppliers could easily ask their questions by virtually accessing their vendor portal and check back later to see the status of their inquiry.

It doesn’t have to stop there; the Now Platform automates the transfer of knowledge through digital workflow automation across the organization and outside of it, so that everyone that affects the financial integrity of the enterprise is involved in the close process somehow.

Make no mistake — companies that enable better access to data through enterprise-wide collaboration will drive better results inside and outside their organizations. With Trintech, ServiceNow^® and its other trusted business partners, enterprises will see true ROI and experience long-term success in their markets.

Learn more about the potential value a digital business ecosystem could deliver to your organization.

Written by: Ashton Mathai