The final article in our CFO ‘journey to digital maturity’ series focuses on instilling a digital-first, business-wide culture of innovation to seize the benefits of fast-moving technology.
The digital landscape of modern business is always changing – a culture of innovation is a requirement for organisations looking to stay ahead. But what does it take to embed digital innovation into your business’ DNA?
We asked three industry experts to share their insights on how technology, skills, and leadership come together to create a roadmap for cultural and digital transformation.
In a culture of innovation, people constantly think about how to improve and solve problems using digital tools and technology.
This digital-first mindset requires a high awareness of available tools, applications, skillsets, and a positive attitude to change. In a digital-forward business culture, the operating model will be set up to allow teams to anticipate, evaluate and use new digital capabilities, rather than see disruption or additional training as a burden.
A culture of innovation views technology and digital strategy as a rolling roadmap, that adapts quickly to fast-moving business priorities, socio-economic pressures, and technological advancements. Alongside the creation of a near-term plan you can execute, you must also ensure your digital strategy is future-proofed and sufficiently agile to allow for rapid reprioritisation in the face of changing business needs and wider macroeconomic context.
None of this is achievable without the solid foundations of robust data, systems and technically aware people.
Vineta Bajaj, Group Chief Financial Officer at e-grocery firm Rohlik Group neatly summed this up at our CFO Forum panel discussion:
Our Digital CFO Survey shows that a digital-first mindset is a rarity. Just over a fifth of businesses have tested and adopted AI models to the point where almost no human intervention is necessary.
Consider the advantage these first-movers have over the 41% of organisations yet to implement AI, such as faster decision-making and improved efficiency.
Opportunities to work with technologies that take care of laborious manual tasks will also attract and retain talent who are eager to engage in meaningful and impactful work.
Building a culture of innovation becomes self-fulfilling: a digital-first approach will attract like-minded people, with every new hire strengthening the cause.
We know the CFO role is evolving. The responsibilities of a modern finance leader have stretched across a broader remit. Almost inevitably now a CFO is expected to have a greater focus on people and talent development, increased strategic influence and decision making, and a strong grip on risk management.
Even though cultural transformation is an organisation-wide effort, CFOs are well-positioned to lead the charge.
There are few other roles that understand the financial opportunities and challenges of different business departments, as well as overarching risk compliance. They can be catalysts for digital development across businesses of any size.
CFOs who can “speak” both finance and technology are incredibly valuable. They can act as a bridge between the technical teams and the business, ensuring that proposed solutions meet business needs.
Not only can they ensure their teams benefit from automation and AI, but they can also help other functions evaluate the risk and ROI of proposed programmes.
They can justify the costs of such projects while aligning any investment with their organisation’s financial goals.
Start with problems rather than technology and get your team involved. Importantly, take dedicated time away from the day-to-day to workshop and dissect pain points that could be solved with technology.
Next, build pilots and proof-of-concepts to strengthen confidence, momentum and methodology. Once you’re confident in your ability to execute you can take on more ambitious projects and have the support of the business who have seen what you can do.
When it comes to understanding the technology itself, CFOs should immerse themselves. Take courses, listen to podcasts, attend webinars or events, understand the solution you’re asking your employees to use. Taking a short PowerBI course, for example, will help you better direct your team as well as give you a new skillset.
Creating a culture of innovation requires a company-wide behavioural and skills shift. This involves identifying the behaviours you want to see and the digital skills that are needed - all the way from junior staff to C-suite.
1. Role-modelling: Use digital tools and demonstrate how they can be effectively integrated into daily operations, such as meetings.
2. Storytelling: Celebrate deserved tech wins, and position failures as learning opportunities to drive innovation.
3. Peer Influence: Identify ‘change champions’ who are enthusiastic about digital tools to influence and encourage others.
4. Nudges: Use a combination of incentives, consequences and small behavioural nudges to encourage digital adoption.
5. Inspiration: show employees what success looks like by organising a talk or demonstration from a finance team that already benefits from digitisation.
6. Reflection: your team is a source of research and knowledge – what technology have they used in previous roles? Do they use any tech at home, like ChatGPT or task managers, that might also be repurposed for work?
Tarka Duhalde, Group Finance Controller at Iris Software Group
In an unprecedented time of rapid technological changes, creating a culture of digital innovation is no longer optional – it's essential.
During this series, our digital experts have detailed the steps required for CFOs to move through to achieve digital maturity. From cyber security to automation and analytics, the digital journey of a CFO is multi-phased and always-changing process. The organisations that achieve success in the next few years will have CFOs committed to continuously evolving their digital strategies and challenging the status quo.
*The CFO Digital Survey is an anonymous questionnaire for 300 CFOs at businesses with £50 million-£1 billion annual revenue (mid-market) and 200 CFOs/GFCs at businesses with more than £1 billion annual revenue (large corporates). The data was obtained in June 2024.
All respondents come from UK-based businesses across a range of sectors and regions.
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