Among the major trends that have contributed to the evolution of the finance function over the past 10 years, the digitization and robotization of processes constitute a major agent of transformation and go so far as to modify the role and place of the Daf. The automation and industrialization of many financial processes have enabled the function to gain in efficiency, which no longer needs to be demonstrated. So what to expect for the next decade? The Dafs and experts invited to the round table Prepare for the future, make sense of finance, which was held on September 23 during 100% Finance, tried to answer this question, which is far from neutral.
“In the very short term, we will have to continue to improve and focus our teams on value-added tasks, estimates Laurence Branthomme, CFO of Eurazeo. Digitization will continue, everything that revolves around robotization will gain momentum until we can take the next step, which is predictive finance. Another point in the evolution of corporate finance will, in my opinion, relate to its link with the extra-financial. The role of the audit committee will increase in these extra-financial performance issues and therefore the finance department will inevitably find itself more and more involved. “
For Philippe Guillaumie, Daf Groupe de Sisley, the emergence of digital and these multiple applications in the financial sphere and the importance of data, financial or not, in the company, creates new circumstances which are shaking up the CFO and which leads him to wonder about his place: ” If the financial director remains on his sovereign functions traditional practices that he exercises historically, he will have less and less his place in the management of the company alongside the CEO. And its place may erode. “ Some even go so far as to speak of uberisation of the Daf by portraying a financial director overwhelmed by automation and finally overwhelmed by the machine. “I only believe in it up to a point. There are still a lot of tasks related to expertise, in addition, there are new tasks that the CFO can capture that will also require real expertise. All this will allow it is up to the CFO to continue to exist. Except that he must prepare for it and give himself the means now, “ underlines Philippe Guillaumie.
From CFO to performance director
From financial management, corporate finance is therefore moving towards managing the performance of the company. “The Daf is the undisputed master of data analysis according to Céline Bayle, product marketing director at Sage. But indeed there is a shift from management controller, master of finance master of deadlines to internal advisor. Even internally at Sage, our CFO now helps us to reorient the choice of products, the mix of services, price positioning, etc. “ This evolution in the role of the Daf is made possible thanks to the tools which allow him to have sensors and to leave the financial value chain to go on the operational value chain. “It is this digital nervous system that allows the CFO to become the performance director “, says the expert. A positive development, therefore, but also potentially destabilizing. “In everything related to performance management in the global sense, the CFO has an irreplaceable role but he will have competitors in the company. A new period is looming and I think will be quite hectic “ notes Philippe Guilaumie from Sisley.
Of course, depending on their size, not all companies are in the same situation. If only at the level of SMEs and mid-cap companies, the situations facing digital transformation are very varied. And for Sisley’s Daf it is the opportunity for these Daf whose daily life is not yet invaded by digital, to anticipate this change and to prepare for it. Béatrice Fayolle, CFO of SBT Humans Matter and Ambassador of Responsible Finance Actors (AFR) goes even further: “the CFO today finds himself, like other professions elsewhere, in a quite uncomfortable situation. But this discomfort is actually pretty awesome because it’s a way to reinvent yourself. We have a strength as financial directors is that we already reconcile a lot of things, legal, social, etc. And we know how to follow them over time. The challenge today is to be able to give them meaning in order to be able to provide this guidance tomorrow to the managers of our companies. “
Profitability, durability, utility
As to whether one day, perhaps not so long ago, the finance department would not be disseminated, not to say dissolved in all the operational BUs, opinions are divided. For Laurence Branthomme of Eurazeo, if data production can indeed be completely delocalized in operational functions, the analysis of this data cannot be relocated. “When we have succeeded in bringing out all of the data production, only analysis will remain. We could go so far as to say that the financial department as such would no longer exist but would become a performance department. as much as I remain convinced that the role of guardian of the temple, of trusted third party and of guarantor of the truth of the Daf will continue. “ More than performance director Béatrice Fayolle prefers to talk about values: “In my opinion, the CFO hardly exists any more. We become the directors of the value or of the values of the company. That is to say the one who will manage to analyze and capture whatever value is created. ‘it is, financial or extra-financial, of the order of the visible or the invisible. become the sensors of value. “ And there are three values for SBT Humans Matter’s Daf: profitability, sustainability and utility. Analyze the data, know how to explain it, give it meaning by putting it into perspective with these three values is therefore one of the new missions of the CFO in his organization and more generally in his ecosystem.
What is the raison d’être for the Daf?
” The role of communicant and of pedagogue of the Daf has increased very strongly, particularly with regard to better consideration of CSR aspects “, underlines Céline Bayle de Sage. Monitoring the consumption of Earth capital is important. “Today, the CFO is somewhat the only one able to translate the contribution of all the departments of the company into the income statement”, believes Philippe Guillaumie de Sisley.
Moreover, the reflections on the purpose and the concept of mission are to finance today what reflections on CSR were to finance 10 years ago. “It is to be hoped that in 10 years the mission of the company will no longer be a subject and will be inescapable. So yes it is worth taking an interest in it now”, points out Laurence Branthomme. However, we cannot go faster than the music. “At the stage of development where many companies, particularly SMEs and mid-cap companies, are at, the concept of CSR is still to be developed and financial directors with their teams can play a promoter role. according to,” tempers Philippe Guillaumie. Nevertheless, the mission of the Daf is to show everyone’s contribution in the value chain of the company. Of all the values of the company.
Tomorrow it will take get out of the heart of the business and go a little deeper into the ecosystem from our companies, to customers, to markets, etc. “We locked ourselves in our houses a little because we were overwhelmed. We have to force ourselves to take height and leave empty spaces in our diaries,” advises Laurence Branthomme. “Take a step aside, you’ll be fine you’ll see!”, concludes Béatrice Fayolle.
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