The changes have come to stay and you have to adapt quickly

People's purchase habits have changed.Products are born in record time.The CEO continually demand the generation of scenarios to move better in the midst of uncertainty.

How to address this was the conservation, a new stage for the CFO and its team: new capacities and technological innovation to face continuous change, which Belén Díaz, a partner responsible for Digital Corporate Solutions of KPMG, and Adolfo Pellicer, general director, general director, general director,from Workday Iberia.

For Díaz, he believes that the CFO is facing "the biggest challenge he had ever had and in which he has to take the lead".This means "continuously plan to accelerate these changes and do it simplified and agile".

To deal with this challenge, it is more necessary than ever technology."The cloud and software as a service will be the facilitators and enabling of this technological transformation", in which it is essential to "adapt the speed of the business with the financial management," says Adolfo Pellicer, general director of Workday Iberia.

You also have to adjust other aspects: “You have to review your processes according to the technology you choose and in the context of the company and its strategic plan.Go adjusting your structure and skills of your equipment, but in a more accelerated and simple way than in the past.And the CFO cannot sleep, ”says Díaz.

Improvement capacity

Pellicer launches an optimistic message and considers that "there is a capacity for improvement" with existing technologies, "such as AI El Machine Learning", and with others that will appear "that will help us automate, simplify and be more agile".

In KPMG they share this opinion, but they call attention to the mistakes that companies usually make.“Apply those technologies on ancient processes;Do it and without considering whether your team is prepared and formed for this new technology and undertake investments in a non -rational way ”.

In Workday they believe it is essential to do change management well.Pellicer compares it to mobile updates.“We use them without a project, from one day to another and in a natural and simple way.So it should be ”, concludes.

Barriers are talent management, a bureaucratic culture and ancient technology

The digitalization and importance of the data have occupied the reflections of the first round table held in the meeting, the CFOS in the face of the challenge of digital transformation, and has been moderated by Juan José Morodo, deputy director of Finchodies.

And they have done it with three companies for which the data is essential.Empark, leader in parking management with 25 million users per year in Spain and Portugal.Energy capital, energy company with more than 19.000 MW in development.And Workday, world leader in cloud applications for finance and human resources.

"Not understanding what the user needs, his needs and dynamics makes your leadership position in danger," explains Pedro Agapito, Empark CFO."We must identify those data that simplify all our processes and make us agile to be competitive," ample Raquel Bonafonte, CFO of Capital Energy."We have to discern the good data of which it is not and be efficient," says Joaquín Huesca, responsible for the financial application line of Workday Iberia.

A clear message

Attending this need must be accompanied "with a strong and clear message from the organization to break with certain things," says Agapito."If the transformation does not come from top to bottom it is impossible" to carry it out, reflects Bonafonte.Both agree that the teams are now very heterogeneous and transverse, and that "they also have to get used to working together".At the end of this process, and as Huesca indicates, with technology the information is democratized and reaches the entire organization ”.

The next step is to choose the tool to be used well and that they all speak the same language."For this to work, there must.In Empark they emphasize the reason, the strategy and always having "the client in the focus".

Workday facilitates with its technology that the CFO can perform that "more strategic" role putting the focus on the important thing, which is the business, and freeing it from other functions that are not.

What differences are there between the CFO of a startup and that of a traditional company?Answering this and other issues was the objective of the second round table, moderated by Marimar Jiménez, editor of fifties, with the title the emerging companies and their growth challenges in the new reconstruction stage.

Karina Barrios, Senior Solution Consultant Finance in Workday made it very clear: "They are smaller departments, with less resources, they must settle processes and in technology they have a poor point".His conclusion, "enough differences.More pressure and emotion ".

For Julien Divay, CFO of Clicks, an online sales application of cars, is "a completely different job".He explains it like this: “Click we do not do projects for more than three months.We review the kpi every day and week.The CFO has to get out of your office and talk to business and see more the indicators of this than those of your own department ".

From another emerging company, Jeffapp, a technological solution to the entrepreneur, Mario Llopis, VP finance, completes the vision: “In a startup the financial work reaches a maximum degree of importance.When you are in this ecosystem it is very important to be very close to the operation to ensure that there is growth, but you are also responsible for reaching higher installments in financing rounds or that the project itself is profitable in itself.

Technology, less risk

Technology is in these companies a powerful tool to control processes, calculate and avoid operational risks."Our platform collects all company processes," explains Devay.“We have been able to adjust many levers thanks to having that information.Before there was a lot of dark theme, now not thanks to technology, ”adds Llopis.

And among so much difference, a similarity to large companies.Find the technological tool that best suits the needs of the startup, that is scalable and that its implementation does not take long.

They are "technologies that are scalable, that have agile architectures, that can move, because they have to accompany the growth of the business," says Barrios."The key here is to choose the one that will give you more value and you will better connect to your system," Razona Devay."Knowing how to select your technological solutions is fundamental," concludes Llopis.