McKinsey & Company estimates that managers at Fortune 500 companies collectively “waste more than 500,000 days a year on ineffective decision making.” That’s likely because they rely on instinct rather than data.

Lack of data isn’t the problem. On the contrary, today more data is generated and collected than ever and most business decision-makers are operating in a fog of data. The real issue is that, until recently, it’s been difficult and impractical to connect key decision-makers to insights buried in that data, and this is especially true of financial data. While most businesses have mountains of financial data, the truth is that they still lack relevant, real-time financial insights and context to support decision-making because that data is distributed, disconnected, and difficult to access and interpret. While still critically important, traditional budgeting and FP&A processes are simply too slow and rigid to keep up with the ever-increasing pace of business. Finance teams and business leaders need better, deeper, and more current financial context to support better, faster, and more accurate decisions.

The good news is that New capabilities in cash flow automation are changing that dynamic by making it easier to access and consider real-time financial insights when making critical business decisions.

Inherent Impediments of Legacy Applications

While some parts of the business, especially sales and marketing, have adopted cloud-native and connected technology, the true digitization of finance has only just begun. Most teams continue to rely on disconnected and often legacy tools and point solutions to mostly gather and consolidate data and automate narrowly defined workflows. The fact is that many of these legacy systems and tools are obsolete in the age of agile business because they can’t keep pace in areas critical to the modern organization, such as:

• Security: Aging legacy systems often cease to be supported, increasing their risk of breach.
• Maintenance: They require updating and patching by IT staff increasingly unfamiliar with them.
• Compatibility: They rarely connect or integrate with older systems or newer technologies.
• Company perception: To employees and customers alike, they feel outdated and cumbersome.
• Data management: Most important of all, they’re unable to synthesize and analyze the vast amount of data being generated across distributed systems in your organization by every department, employee, channel, transaction, device, and customer. The result is a disconnected, incomplete picture of what’s really going on at any given time.

According to Deloitte, this means that “organizations that use outmoded technology are often limited in addressing critical business needs, as well as seizing opportunities for future growth.”

Infinite Possibilities of Digital Cash Flow Performance Platforms

When labor-intensive, spreadsheet-based finance processes are converted to automated, AI-driven cash flow performance platforms, the old impediments to smart decision-making are removed and replaced with the following:

• Holistic cash view: Decision-makers have the latest information from every possible source integrated into one complete view of your organization’s cash position. With this clear and shared view, it’s easier to make the right decision at the right time.
• Cost effective data analysis: The AI embedded in emerging cash flow platforms can rapidly analyze every available piece of data without the need for additional human resources or the protracted time it would take them to manually sort through such vast information.
• Instant and dynamic visibility instead of forecasts: Based on real-time information about customer demographics, past transactions, current trends, and external factors, the cash flow performance platform eliminates the time it takes to create accurate cash flow forecasts and provides a longer view into the future.
• Collaborative environment: Armed with better information and fuller predictions, staff are free to collaborate on decisions that further your business objectives.

Ultimate Game Changer

With over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated per day, it’s increasingly difficult for organizations to operate—much less succeed—without new technologies capable of immediately plowing through such data or connecting it to those who desperately need it to make sound business decisions.

Tesorio’s cash flow performance platform can lead you into this better future.