Globality predicts CFO AI by 2024
 

As developments in artificial intelligence (AI) continue, we ask Seth Catalli, Chief Revenue Officer at AI and autonomous sourcing leader Globality Inc (www.globality.com) on what CFOs can expect to see on the AI front in 2024.

“Generative AI is a transformative technology that can transform workplace processes and drive instant improvements to the bottom line helping the CFO radically improve productivity, reduce operating expenses, and gain a competitive advantage.  It can also help companies understand the role of skills, culture, diversity, pay, and other factors in hiring, development, internal mobility, job design and the impact on productivity.  Additionally, Gen-AI provides a better understanding of corporate requirements, increases corporate productivity, cuts costs through autonomous sourcing, and improves speed-to-market.”

“Microsoft and Google have implemented Gen-AI into their workplace suites to enhance user productivity and accelerate workflows, while Adobe is enhancing its Firefly suite to create and transform audio, video, illustrations, and 3D models to create more content quickly with less resource required.  In coding, it helps software coders convert one programming language to another, mastering programming tools and methods, automating code writing, predicting and pre-empting problems, and managing system documentation.  Critically for spend management, using AI-powered technology to manage company spend across procurement eliminates laborious and outdated manual sourcing models and enables a business to realize cost savings of 10-20% across its company spend from day one.  I expect to see huge enterprise take-up of gen AI, in procurement especially, in 2024.”

“Procurement itself is also changing, recognizing that it needs to move beyond sourcing goods and services at the cheapest price.  AI-powered technology can automate repetitive, transactional processes and free up procurement teams to drive better business outcomes, so Procurement leaders should be using it to make data-driven decisions, but they also in 2024 need to embrace all kinds of game-changing technology, develop closer and mutually-supportive supplier relationships, start to think long-term, and work to attract top talent.  McKinsey says Procurement leaders who demonstrate value to the enterprise can rapidly become full-fledged strategic partners to CEOs, CFOs, and COOs, and that’s a great route to travel over the next few months – and beyond.”

“Procurement can be seen as a strategic player that’s on par with anyone in the C-suite.  It can do so by helping unlock innovation and unleashing employee productivity through the power of AI.  As a result, it can help the company recover tens of millions in dollars that would otherwise be lost due to unmanaged or poorly managed indirect spend.  That’s an outstanding story for procurement leaders to tell as they head into 2024!”
 
“We also need a new approach by our colleagues in Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A).  In 2024, managers need to start expansively leveraging automation in spend management to drive better decision-making, increase productivity and efficiency, and deliver double-digit savings.  Automating repetitive tasks frees up time and resources, allowing managers to focus on strategic activities.  Two-thirds of FP&A professionals believe AI will transform the function, for example, which is something our customers would massively endorse – autonomous sourcing technology delivers 10-20% cost savings, 70% efficiency gains, and 20x ROI.  Automated spend management platforms also improve compliance and reduce the risk of non-compliance.  Championing automation empowers managers to identify critical factors and link them to financial performance with data, making them finance leaders with strategic vision and leadership skills.  In 2024, we can expect to see a lot of positive developments on this matrix.”

“Over the next 12 months, CFOs will be prioritizing cost control and cash accumulation.  They’ll be doing so with a focus on technology, digital transformation, and skill.  In response, companies will adopt truly autonomous procurement technology to enable business stakeholders to self-serve quickly and easily, driving bottom-line improvements and allowing procurement to focus on strategic aspects.  Traditional sourcing tools lack advanced automation and AI/ML (machine learning) is absent in many tools.  AI-driven autonomous procurement can increase sourcing efficiencies, improve ROI/TCO, and maximize cost savings.  Leading global companies like BT and Santander Bank have adopted the power of AI to maximize returns at billions of dollars on annual spend each on the platform.  CFOs can work with CPOs to introduce AI-powered sourcing quickly and realize immediate results to meet the challenges of today's uncertain global economy.”
 
“In parallel, Procurement leaders are under pressure to improve their operating models and provide a better user experience due to the pandemic and inflation.  The key to increasing agility and resilience is to redesign manual processes to be user-friendly, digital, and intelligent.  Moving more spend to self-service without sacrificing compliance or risk management multiplies operating efficiencies and cost savings, freeing up procurement talent to focus on value-driven strategic tasks.  Forward-thinking CPOs are adopting new technology, such as intelligent, autonomous sourcing platforms to optimize the sourcing process and enable their teams to operate in a more agile manner.  This new approach will enable procurement to deliver better business outcomes and help companies survive and thrive during uncertain economic times.  By embedding intelligent insights into a company's business processes, it will allow procurement teams and stakeholders to access and act upon valuable information and insights, driving better outcomes across the entire organization.”

“Finally, the way a company spends its money has the potential to support its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy more than any other action.  If CFOs and other finance leaders could start to think of ESG as “Enterprise Spending for Good” instead of an expensive overhead, they can influence their suppliers to operate more sustainably using intelligent digital technology to select suppliers who do so.  Global corporations can also help create sustainable economies by spending more money locally in the countries in which they operate and by spending more money with outstanding smaller firms and diverse firms.  New autonomous sourcing and spend management technology makes this possible by removing the frictions that prevented companies from doing this efficiently and with confidence that quality expectations will be met, while also maintaining good governance, transparency, and compliance.”