Firstly, we must start by saying thank you to Magda who will be stepping down as co-chair of the Financial Accounting & Reporting network and all the work she has done in organising these sessions.
Thank you to all of you that were able to join our virtual Financial Accounting & Reporting network event and to Isaac Griffiths for his insightful overview of the implementation of Workiva at Illumina.
We started discussing system implementations and the level of technology change people are seeing within their company. It was not surprising to see that technology change is a high priority for teams and businesses now as we continue to see a drive towards automation, although FA&R is usually lower down the priority list when it comes to technology innovation. Our Sli.do results and discussions showed a lot of focus has been on Power BI and RPA, but there are continuing challenges on system implementation ranging from lack of resourcing, funding, and resistance to change. This led into some breakout sessions understanding these challenges and how to overcome these with good communication, a realistic project and testing plan, as well as ensuring we are looking after our people.
We then had a member contribution from Isaac Griffiths on the implementation of Workiva at Illumina. He gave an great overview of the previous manual process that was required to complete statutory reporting across multiple entities and jurisdictions and how this tool has help create standardisation and a reduction of errors as well as time saving across his team. This led to some fantastic questions and discussions around the tools capabilities, as well as how the time saving of the team has been utilised for more impactful work.
Following on from this discussion we had some more sli.do questions and breakout rooms on what the future holds for different teams systems and process improvement. A common theme running through these discussions was the need to reduce the non-value add work, but not just through automating current processes, but optimising the process before this is done so that you are not replicating an inefficient process.
There were some great discussions and insightful points raised and you can review and download the resources below.
View the Sli.do results HERE
View the Sodexo presentation HERE
We look forward to seeing you at the Networking Live session taking place on day 1, November 15th at Emirates Old Trafford and the session is entitled:
Evolving financial data, processes and controls into Future-Ready support for the business
We look forward to seeing you all in person next month.
