Achieving Better Finance: Are You Transformed Yet?

I have written before that good Finance Transformation addresses People, Process, Technology, Data and Information. We target each operating model component to make Finance better.

But what does it mean for a finance function to get better? Improvement for Finance means movement in one of five dimensions:

1. More timely information
2. More insightful analysis
3. More accurate reporting
4. More efficient operations
5. More reliable (less risk and better controls)

Thus, the objective is to transform into an organization where every team is always working on 1-3 initiatives at a time that will move it forward in one of these dimensions. A transformed Finance team knows what it means to be better, targets specific metrics to improve, plans and executes initiatives that will bring about those improvements, and can measure the impact of those efforts.

One of the best places to start a transformation is with alignment. For example, does everyone on the team know what it means to be better? Likewise, do they agree on which metrics best align with the five dimensions above?