What should we take away from the PwC study on the 2022 priorities of finance departments?

Unsurprisingly,the PwC study show that cash management, is still a top priority for finance departments for the year 2022. Indeed, during the Covid-19 health crisis, treasurers had to face major challenges. They had to question their operating methods (59% of CFOs had to modify their budgetary approach), as well as their desire to no longer pilot their cash blindly. Indeed, the crisis has had an impact on performance management for 24% and cash management for 22%.
Thus, new objectives such as the automation of processes to increase efficiency (34%), but also the implementation of new management methods (25%).

Discover the full study here: PwC study to download

New objectives for finance departments

These two objectives are achieved firstly by working on the communication of performance with each department. The latter involves defining a common language. The study shows that 18% of the main actions to be undertaken to strengthen the Business Partner suggest better tools for the finance department, 8% better access to internal and external data and finally 7% strengthening the finance teams.
Thus, the challenge is to share information bases and improve the use of data by the business lines:

• common grounds,
• reliability of flows,,
• and making this data available to the professions, so that they can appropriate and manipulate it.

See also our summary infographic of the study here: our infographic

Digitalisation of processes is inevitable

All this starts with the digitalisation of processes. The study shows that 84% of CFOs plan to invest in digitalization, 74% plan to upgrade their ERP.

"The days of making decisions on gut feeling are over, you have to be data driven to be well informed. Financiers must be the guardians of data, of all data."

"One of the main challenges of digitalisation is the traceability of information from end to end.

Digitalisation will be the key word in 2022.

Without forgetting the expectations of the financial departments

However, one should not forget the other expectations of CFOs, which include:

• to make changes to the budgeting process (59%),
• but also Rolling Forecast (39%),
• want multi-scenario approaches (33%),
• wish to rely on predictive analysis to better manage the process (13%),
• to reduce the number of iterations,
• and reduce the level of detail required.

The objective is clear: more regular monitoring of Cash by increasing the frequency of cash flow forecasts. 51% of CFOs surveyed intend to upgrade their cash flow tools, 30% in the medium term and 26% in the long term.
For many years, the financial professions have struggled to make the transition to digitalization. But the Covid-19 health crisis and, above all, the evolution of the various standards have brought about a common awareness.This crisis does not undermine the confidence of financial management in the 3-year growth outlook, as it is higher than 2021.
The implementation of a cash culture à travers la mise en place d’un logiciel de prévision sera pour 2022 votre copilote idéal en tant que DAF pour satisfaire les exigences attendues.

Closely monitor your cash flow in a clear and optimised manner with our Cashlab tool.