By Contributor,Jim DeLoach

Copyright forbes

Nearly three out of four finance organizations today are employing artificial intelligence (AI), based on the results of Protiviti’s latest global survey of CFOs and finance leaders. According to another forward-looking study, 74% of CFOs believe that by 2035, AI and automation will completely reshape the finance function. Furthermore, 68% of CFOs (along with 70% of CEOs) believe that organizations that do not invest now in technology, infrastructure and skills will not survive the next five years.

The “secret sauce” to disruptive finance: purveying better data sooner

Accordingly, it is no surprise that more CFOs are working with their CEOs and C-suite peers to formulate and execute disruption-related strategies. The focus of these game plans ranges from enhancing an organization’s ability to respond to disruption as an agile follower to—best case—enabling the company to ascend to “disruptive leader” status by radically transforming its industry or even creating new industries and markets. In between these two extremes is making progress at becoming more disruptive and competitive in adapting to changes in the market.

Although an organizationwide focus on disruption is distinctly strategic and cross-functional in nature, it begs a more targeted question for finance leaders: How can CFOs equip their finance groups to drive innovation and execute disruption-focused initiatives?

The answer, in short: “Better data sooner.”

High-performing CFOs and their teams operate as the purveyors of finance and performance data. They routinely venture outside their lanes by applying financial data and insights—together with finance core competencies—to a wide range of non-finance opportunities and threats that exist throughout the enterprise. This data can also fuel the finance group’s focus on disruptive innovations.

There are two essential characteristics of a finance group committed to becoming more innovative. First, finance leaders channel their creative thinking into evaluations of business opportunities and challenges that can benefit from finance expertise and innovation. For example, consider how these two questions can stimulate this conversation:

MORE FOR YOU

Can embedded payments reduce transactional friction, improve customer experience, condense the cash conversion cycle and strengthen cash flow management?

What investments are required to develop quantum-resistant data security and privacy?

The second attribute is where the rubber meets the road: the ability of finance to develop and articulate data-driven foresights that enable the organization to seize the opportunities and navigate the challenges identified in the creative thinking process. Excellence in innovation requires an interconnected set of core enablers.

Pursuing financially rooted innovations beyond finance

When it comes to conceiving and launching disruptive innovations, CFOs have plenty of options.

Within the finance group, we have seen CFOs prompt their procurement partners to add a question about AI to each request for proposal they issue. That question should direct prospective vendors to describe how they plan to use AI to enhance their offerings. These descriptions not only ensure vendors are positioned to deliver maximum value and efficiency for the enterprise but also generate fresh ideas on potential uses of AI.

We also have seen finance groups conduct analyses of AI solutions and tools used throughout the organization. These inventories pinpoint homegrown AI tools that can be shared or repurposed as well as underused AI functionalities within solutions from existing cloud providers—insights that can help slash licensing fees on unnecessary stand-alone AI solutions and tools and improve the ROI on that aspect of tech spend.

Outside the finance group, older technology platforms can be rethought and replaced with modern, cloud-based systems. Longstanding assumptions within the sales organization (e.g., one channel is sufficient) can be revisited. Access to more transactional data and better insights on customer behavior can lead to better pricing strategies. Outdated cost-cutting approaches can be supplanted by ongoing cost optimization strategies that redirect previous spend to investments that grow the top line.

These types of real-world examples demonstrate that finance’s disruptive innovations can come in many forms. For example, CFOs can take a hard look at the organization’s real estate footprint and suggest major reconfigurations via new working arrangements and overhauls of factory, warehousing and transportation strategies. While this type of real estate innovation exists beyond finance’s traditional boundaries, the evaluation and overhaul plan are rooted firmly in financial data and analyses, which recently have become more complicated as a result of a variable tariff and trade environment. The same holds true for innovations related to AI usage in finance and throughout the enterprise. The CFO should lead discussions about and inquiries into how AI-driven cost savings can be redirected to product and service innovations.

Pouring the foundation for disruptive finance

AI is now a foundational pillar in finance groups focused on innovation. Two points are important to consider regarding AI. First, CFOs should start emphasizing the use of AI in nearly every finance process and activity. This includes the order-to-cash and procure-to-pay cycles as well as other core finance processes; financial planning and analysis (FP&A); cost optimization initiatives; and governance, risk and compliance (GRC) activities.

Second, the most lucrative returns on AI investments extend beyond cost savings to longer-term value generation via business model innovation, profitability initiatives, customer experience breakthroughs and higher-level analysis of information. The latter point regarding analysis is critical from a job satisfaction standpoint due to fostering more creative thinking by reducing the need for manual data preparation. These AI-driven capabilities largely map to the focal points that separate “disruptive leader” organizations from the rest of the pack, as defined in our Global Board Governance Survey.

Specific enablers of a disruptive finance organization include the following:

AI adoption: Establishing an AI-enabled finance group requires finance leaders to address both their talent and technology needs. CFOs should identify the skills necessary to support and advance the finance organization’s expanding AI use and then design innovative approaches to acquire and develop these difficult-to-access competencies. CFOs also should assess the finance group’s agentic and generative AI use cases based on their potential to support cost optimization and profitability initiatives, reimagine core finance processes, and strengthen FP&A and GRC activities. Advancing the finance organization’s AI capabilities also requires strict adherence to organizational AI governance policies along with clear communications that consider and address employee concerns.

FP&A optimization: Many finance leaders have invested significant funds and efforts to enhance their FP&A capabilities. This work intensified amid the business closures and demand spikes triggered by the global pandemic. Yet the need for predictive insights on sourcing, revenue assurance, spend strategies and pricing decisions has continued in recent years due to variable inflation, geopolitical turmoil disrupting supply chains, trade and tariff policy variability, and overall economic uncertainty. An optimized FP&A function equips finance groups with timely analyses of emerging threats to and opportunities for the organization, along with data-driven insights on potential finance innovations. It also contains integrated and flexible self-service tools that facilitate real-time collaboration and digital on-demand planning, integrated driver-based machine learning models, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and reporting across mobile platforms.

Technology enablement: The success of the finance group’s AI adoption and FP&A optimization hinges on technology enablement—specifically, improving the technology infrastructure needed to harness data, the lifeblood of a disruptive finance group. This data must be kept in optimal condition—cleansed, structured and scaled into useful formats for analysis and decision-making support. Investments in process transformation, ERP enablement, cloud-based applications, data quality management and related forms of technology modernization help finance groups continually improve how they access, protect and use data in their role as purveyors of finance and performance information across the enterprise.

Finally, a less tangible yet equally valuable element of finance innovation bears close consideration: culture. In recent years, many CFOs have embraced culture-building by equipping their teams with a sense of purpose, clear priorities, well-defined tasks, assistance from strategically aligned ecosystem partners, and direction and support from executive sponsors. Disruption-minded finance leaders also establish a tone at the top that emphasizes the importance of staying close to the customer, monitoring relevant market trends, supporting organizational speed and agility, and embracing necessary change.

Such cultures, combined with a focus on AI and technology enablement, innovation and disruption, are critical to build and manage finance groups that will help lead the enterprise into the future.

Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions