Let’s not dance around the subject. Simply put, most financial service organizations are not using available automation technologies to their best benefit.
But that’s not just our perspective. Many CFO’s and senior business executives already recognize this as a critical shortcoming.
In a recent financial services survey by McKinsey, only 13% of executive-level respondents claimed to already be automating key processes and putting AI to use. That, to us, reveals a huge competitive opportunity waiting to be seized. Similarly, a little over twice as many businesses (36%) had digitized more than a quarter of their finance functions in the 12 months leading up to the survey. That leaves a majority 64% in a largely non-digital rut.
What’s Holding Financial Service Organizations Back?
Most CFO’s in McKinsey’s survey said they needed a clearer understanding of the digitization opportunities available to them — key for such a transformative shift. Their next biggest concern was whether or not employees’ digital skill sets would be ready to implement, support or oversee automation in progress. Note that both of these hurdles occur at the intersection of humans and technology and are not isolated to the finance function of a business. To us, we see this intersection as one of the most important opportunities for automation — right where technology supports a business and its people at work — through workforce management.
As financial experts, leaders of these businesses understand the correlation of being operationally efficient and their profitability. Having outdated infrastructure, even at the base level of scheduling, payroll and benefits management, is enough to hold their businesses back. Many of the latest workforce management solutions now incorporate a degree of automation to support people managers and help look out for employees’ interests. These solutions often use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to expedite administrative processes, ensure overall compliance and help organizations and their people focus on performing their best.
Understanding and Seizing the Benefits of Automation
When, where, and how automation makes sense differs from business to business. From a workforce management and operations standpoint, a partner like The WFC Group can help financial leaders determine which opportunities that are right for them. We know it’s just as important to see and understand the potential impact of automation as it relates to each specific business before committing it to action. But one thing is for certain across all financial services organizations, no matter what.
Performance relies on people at all levels of a business being able to do their best work, supported by both strong leadership and technology that keeps operations on-track. Automation opportunities in workforce management may be the kick-start financial service providers need to realize the competitive benefits and step into the future of finance. It’s our job to help these organizations understand each of these opportunities and turn them into their advantage, and we couldn’t be happier to help.
