‘Finance institutions must leverage technology to remain relevant’

Deal Advisory, KPMG Nigeria, Ijeoma Emezie-Ezigbo. PHOTO: Twitter

By Benjamin Alade
Digital disruptions have caused significant changes in the business landscape, hence the need for financial institutions and managers to leverage technology to remain relevant in the modern environment.
 
The Partner, Deal Advisory, KPMG Nigeria, Ijeoma Emezie-Ezigbo, gave the advice while speaking at a business webinar, tagged: “Re-Imaging your organization’s tax and finance function post pandemic,” organised by the Franco-Nigerian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FNCCI).
 
Emezie-Ezigbo said there is an increasing demand from business partners beyond providing financial reports and ensuring statutory compliance. Stakeholders, CEOs, operations and commercial teams are looking up to finance to provide insights to strengthen decision making processes.
 
She said COVID-19 has presented organizations with unprecedented challenges that have caused accelerated use of digital solutions. With the use of technology, finance functions’ transactional activities, including inventory count are now done remotely.
 
According to her, the pandemic has exposed the inefficiencies of forecasting using historical trends. Finance leaders and their teams will need to learn how to leverage technology to perform forward looking analysis.
  
“This is indeed a wake-up call to finance leaders that the time to act is now. Finance leaders need to keep abreast of the rapidly changing technology landscape and be aware of the possibilities,” she added.
  
Speaking on what to do post-pandemic, Emezie-Ezigbo said organisations need to re-assess the robustness of their channel mix to drive growth, while developing a roadmap for implementing automation in the finance organization.
   
She noted that finance institutions must select the right providers and partners to assist with the automation journey and road map; establish governance and change management strategy to ensure benefits are realized and automation adoption is effective.
    
She added that a post-pandemic business model should be robust and customer-centric, in view of consumers’ financial constraints, while reorganising people and processes around the technology is essential.
   
In his remarks, the Director-General, FNCCI, Moses Umoru, urged organisations to invest and broaden channel mix from the traditional channels, to ensure that they are able to appeal to different segments of the market.