ACCESSIBILITY, INVOLVEMENT & OWNERSHIP
In the spring and early summer of 2023, exacto conducted a survey with the participation of CFOs and CEOs representing 50 Danish companies. We did this to uncover the status of budget and forecast processes in 2023, how they are used to support management's work, and finally how the companies expect to utilize the technological opportunities that support the processes in the future.
Over the summer, we will share some of the various insights that the survey has provided in a small series of columns. This is the third column in the series. Here you can read the first two columns: "From paper to platform - from analogue to digital" & "Timely due diligence - multiple forecasts and data sources".
Accessibility, involvement & ownership
A transition to using a more centralised digital platform instead of locally anchored and manually handled Excel models gives management an effective management tool. They are supported in their administration and given access to insights into the company's performance across all units and departments.
The transformation also has a beneficial effect on the optimisation of the employees' individual deliveries and their commitment. The increased transparency, where one’s own performance data can be compared with the rest of the organisation, entails an implicit incentive.
Accessibility and inclusion
The digital platform's wide accessibility and the capability to involve several key employees means that the individual employee gets both easier access to coordinate inputs, e.g. central resource features, with colleagues across the organisation, and that he experiences a higher degree of ownership of his own results.
The importance of this, the survey shows, is clearly understood by CFOs and CEOs. When asked to what extent their solutions are designed to have the widest possible availability, 21.7% of the CFOs who answered the question state it as "Very high" and 21.7% as "High".
For the CEOs who have answered the question, 12.0% indicate "Very high" and 37.5% "Medium".
In other words, it is already an integrated part of the company's management toolbox, but if one looks at the answers that point to the future, it will be prioritised even more. 66.7% of CFOs expect to have more focus on it in the future. This applies to a whopping 87.5% of the CEOs who answered the question.
Ownership
When asked specifically about the importance of establishing a higher degree of ownership by the individual employee or department for delivered results, 8.3% of the CFOs who answered the question indicate "Very high" and 45.8% "High".
Of the CEOs who answered the question, 12.5% answered "Very high", 12.5% "High" and 50% "Medium".
However, it is clearly part of the future management strategy, since 70.8% of CFOs expect to have more focus on it in the future, and 87.5% of the CEOs who answered the question.