FINANCE FUNCTION BUSINESS AGILITY

IN A PANDEMIC
Key Themes from eCapital’s Virtual FP&A Roundtable on Business Agility

In July of 2020, Brian Kalish (Principal, Kalish Consulting) hosted a virtual roundtable
conversation, sponsored by eCapital Advisors, for FP&A professionals on the topic of business
agility. The roundtable’s participants discussed topics including:

» The investments that make business agility possible;

» the changes that finance professionals are making now to work smarter and faster;
» agility-boosting tools and technology; and
» what finance professionals hope to see for their teams and organizations in the near future.
This article provides a summary of key themes from participants’ conversations on these topics
and describes the ways in which greater agility is helping finance teams provide better insights
and analysis for their organizations.

APQC would like to thank Brian Kalish and eCapital Advisors for the
opportunity to participate in this virtual roundtable discussion.

Foundations of Business Agility

The agility with which many organizations have been able to adapt to disruption is no accident—
business agility is built on a strong foundation that includes people, processes, and technology.
As one participant noted, “you can’t just flip a switch and be agile.” Organizations that have
steadily invested in their people, processes, and technology are weathering the storm today,
while those that did not make those investments are scrambling to catch up. Fortunately, many
roundtable participants said that their finance teams were largely ready for the widespread
disruption of COVID-19. “We didn’t miss a beat” was a common refrain during the discussion.
One of the most visible examples of how these investments have paid off is the agility with
which many organizations were able to shift their finance teams to fully remote work. “We
made a lot of technological investments over the last two years, so we were able to do this
pretty smoothly—We had everything ready to go and it wasn’t a big deal for us to flip to remote
within a 24-hour period,” said one participant.
Finance teams and organizations that already leveraged flexible work arrangements were
particularly well prepared to make the shift. One participant, for example, pointed out that
“we’ve typically been an organization where employees work from home once or twice a week
Page 1 of 4

Published with permission from Brian Kalish and eCapital

Advisors ©2020 APQC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 anyway, so we were well-prepared for the situation.” Other participants attributed this agility to
the finance function’s natural disposition to prepare for a wide range of scenarios: “Being on the
financial side of the business, we’ve known that we’re going to need to be lean and prepared for
any situation, and the transition has been very seamless.”
Other participants were impressed with their team’s ability to immediately step in and execute
well-prepared continuity plans. “That was great to see because we are an essential business, so
we need to keep operations going and be agile in our shift. From the finance perspective, we
haven’t missed a beat—and we are a public company.” Organizations that planned and
prepared in advance for a wide range of scenarios have been able to respond much more
quickly, which helps maintain trust with customers and investors.

Agility in Practice
Responding to the ‘new normal’ of COVID-19 requires finance teams to make changes both large
and small. Roundtable participants described some of the decisions they have made to keep
teams leaner and help them provide better partnering to the business in an uncertain time.

SLIMMING DOWN THE OFFICE

The need for agility is accelerating a push for leaner offices, especially now that more processes
are digitized and new technologies are eliminating the need for traditional office equipment.
“Today I pulled the plug on our desk phones,” said one participant. “We’re going to save
$90,000 a year because no one will have a phone on their desk that they’re not using anyway.”
Another said that printing was one of the first things to go as processes became digitized and
remote work became the norm: “In this environment, what do we even need to print anymore?
We should really look at what the future is going to be.”

SPEEDING UP REPORTING AND ANALYSIS

One of the most significant shifts for many participants has been a rapid acceleration of the
cadence of reporting, a challenge that is driving finance teams to work smarter and faster than
ever. “I'm seeing a lot more urgency around daily reporting, addressing the trends that we’re
seeing, and making decisions very quickly across the entire organization,” noted one participant.
Reports that the business used to need monthly or quarterly have become weekly or even daily
needs.
The acceleration of reporting and the insight needed to keep business strong is also pushing
organizations to expand their data sources. “We never really cared about state-level analysis
before,” said one participant. “Now, we’re seeing a lot of differences based on states,
geography, location, and country.” Participants also noted that there has been a push to utilize
external data sources—like COVID-19 data—to better understand why online sales might be
strong in one part of the country and not in another.

Page 2 of 4

Published with permission from Brian Kalish and eCapital

©2020 APQC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Advisors
 Agility-boosting Tools and Technology
Tools like automation, data and analytics, and collaboration platforms are the technology
through which finance professionals and their organizations are navigating the new normal.
Roundtable participants shared how these technologies are enabling more time for business
partnering, better remote collaboration, and deeper insights to keep the business moving
forward in an uncertain time.

AUTOMATION
APQC has found that the ‘new normal’ of COVID-19 has rapidly accelerated digital
transformation initiatives, including robotic process automation (RPA). Roundtable participants
affirmed that RPA projects were unfolding more quickly as organizations work to serve
customers better and faster than before. “The curve that we thought would take five years for
RPA has happened in four months,” noted one participant. “There’s been a huge shift toward
automation. If the process can be mapped, it can be automated.”
The acceleration of RPA, according to some participants, is part of a fundamental rethinking of
how businesses operate and how they can better respond to customers. “It's like business is
now asking about the ‘why’ behind their functions and behind the business. If the answer is that
we’re here to satisfy the customer and we want their experience to be a good one, then what is
it that we can then do to improve that customer experience? Why shouldn’t we be doing it
differently?” Automating what can be automated means that finance professionals and their
companies can deliver more “white-glove experiences” and outcome-based value to customers
while also freeing up time to help the business run better.

DATA AND ANALYTICS

As the cadence of reporting accelerates and organizations need to account for a complex and
uneven financial terrain, participants said that investments in data and analytics are becoming
more important than ever. “Even the companies that are eliminating or furloughing some
positions are still investing in technology to better support their data and analytics to get all the
metrics aligned and consistent.” Participants hope that these investments can free up time so
that finance professionals can spend more time advising the business: “If we want to deliver
both quality and quantity in reporting, we can’t spend 70 percent of our time assembling the
data and reporting. I hope we flip that ratio and spend 70 percent of our time connecting with
the business.”

VIRTUAL COLLABORATION PLATFORMS

Roundtable participants said that collaboration tools and platforms are helping their
organizations navigate the new normal by facilitating remote collaboration and helping finance
professionals plan more effectively. One participant said that his organization’s technology
“allows our creative teams to create virtual war rooms and do all of their creative campaigning.
Even though they’re not in the same room, it’s been great to see how the teams have solved
problems on their own to keep the business running.”
For teams that are used to collaborating in person, tools like digital whiteboards and virtual
sticky notes replicate tools that are, for now, left behind in offices. “We’re looking at adopting

Page 3 of 4

Published with permission from Brian Kalish and eCapital

©2020 APQC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Advisors
 and building a lot of new collaboration tools, especially since so much of the spontaneous,
creative brainstorming is typically done in person around a whiteboard,” said one participant.
These comments are consistent with APQC’s research on how organizations have been finding a
new normal through technology. For example, 62 percent of respondents to APQC’s Proactive to
Reactive: The Next 90 Days survey said that the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of
integrated collaboration platforms. These tools are enabling effective remote collaboration
across the enterprise, from process work to finance and beyond.

Looking to the Future

The final discussion question of the roundtable asked participants to reflect on their ‘wish-list’
over the next 6 to 12 months. What do finance teams need in the near-term future to remain
strong during an uncertain time? Participants had varying responses to this question, including:

» Pushing tools and technology to the next level. “We’re using our cloud-based tools and
technology to the best of our ability, but can we push the envelope even more when it
comes to what it can provide us?”
» Continuing to build on RPA successes. “We invested a lot in automating a lot of the
reporting to make it happen daily and pull data automatically. That needs to continue.”
» Greater speed to insight. “How can we make things more agile with the tools we currently
have, identify any gaps, and address those as we go along?”
» Deeper insight. “Better utilizing our data and layering in new variables like COVID-19 and
changing regulations in different regions.”
» More value-added time for customers and business partnering. “Spending more time being
a business partner and leveraging technology to spin off those reports and forecasts in a
much quicker and more accurate way.”

CONCLUSION
The extent to which finance professionals and their organizations have been successful in
navigating an uncertain terrain is a product of their investments in people, processes,
technology, and culture. “If you don’t have all four, you can’t move forward,” Kalish said.
Collectively, the panel’s roundtable participants and their organizations demonstrate that these
investments pay off in moments of disruption and can deliver benefits like better and faster
analysis; more time for customers; and more insights that help drive the business forward.

ABOUT APQC
APQC helps organizations work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence. It is the world’s
foremost authority in benchmarking, best practices, process and performance improvement,
and knowledge management. APQC’s unique structure as a member-based nonprofit makes it a
differentiator in the marketplace. APQC partners with more than 500 member organizations
worldwide in all industries. With more than 40 years of experience, APQC remains the world’s
leader in transforming organizations. Visit us at https://www.apqc.org/, and learn how you can
make best practices your practices.

Page 4 of 4

Published with permission from Brian Kalish and eCapital

©2020 APQC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Advisors