Aligning the finance operating model with ERP: A roadmap for transformation

During the assessment phase of an ERP implementation, Finance capabilities are categorised by strategic importance, i.e. their impact on creating a competitive advantage through differentiation to competitors. This prioritisation shapes the technology dimension of the Finance operating model, determining the ERP customisation scope and deciding where to invest effort for customisation versus push for standardisation. Capabilities that are strategic and distinctive, representing a competitive advantage, may require ERP customisation.

In practice, we observe a bidirectional gap:

• Over-customisation: Some organisations classify too many capabilities as strategic, leading to unnecessary ERP customisations that increase system complexity and implementation costs.
• Under-customisation: Others underestimate the potential power of customisation and have too high ambitions for standard ERP solutions, while targeted customisation is essential to remain competitive.

Resolving this tension requires a cross-functional team that combines process experts’ deep operational knowledge with senior leaders’ strategic perspective. Once ERP implementation begins, customisation recommendations are escalated to a design board for formal review and approval, ensuring alignment with the organisation’s strategic direction. Combining cross-functional expertise with governance oversight ensures organisations distinguish competitive advantages from operational necessities, optimising both value and cost-efficiency.

However, governance alone cannot validate success. To ensure that the ERP strategy delivers the intended value and given the scale and capital intensity of such transformations, organizations should establish capability-related value tracking mechanisms during the assessment phase. This enables continuous progress monitoring to ensure the realisation of envisioned benefits against the business case.

ERP deployment success depends on synchronising technology changes with the other dimensions of the Finance operating model. To align talent and technology, organisations should ensure they have the right team in place to drive change.

This requires attention to four key dimensions:

• Flexible workforce structures that allow scaling of project teams with evolving needs, rather than maintaining a static structure. This enables organisations to deploy specialised expertise while optimising resources and costs.
• Strategic backfilling which ensures critical Finance roles remain staffed during the transition by developing succession plans, preventing operational gaps.
• Embedded change leadership in collaboration with Human Resources to anticipate resistance and foster engagement. Practical tactics include resistance mapping, targeted stakeholder engagement plans, sentiment monitoring, regular communication and feedback loops enabling a two-way dialogue.
• New skills and capabilities that Finance teams must develop to thrive in AI-enabled ERP environments. Beyond system proficiency, skills in data literacy, advanced analytics interpretation, process automation oversight, and cross-functional collaboration are required.
  

What we’ve consistently observed is that embedding new behaviours and ways of working is equally important as deploying new technology. Change management, central to the Talent dimension, should be tightly integrated with an ERP transformation to drive user adoption, unlock the full capabilities of the new tool, and realise the return on investment.

ERP success further requires alignment with the organisational structure and processes. A best practice that has emerged is the appointment of Global Process Owners (GPOs) – representing a deliberate shift from functional silos to end-to-end accountability of Finance processes across the entire organisation.

The effectiveness of a GPO is directly tied to their seniority and organisational positioning. A GPO should carry sufficient authority to drive standardisation across the organisation, while remaining close enough to operational reality to make credible configuration decisions.

During ERP deployment, a GPO for “Accounts Payable” for example, is responsible for defining the process in the new ERP tool. Critically, the GPO’s mandate extends beyond the implementation itself, becoming the permanent guardian of process integrity, governing change requests and preventing configuration drifts as the organisation evolves.

As GPOs holistically own processes end-to-end, they shape the organisational structure and processes necessary to ensure an ERP implementation works cohesively:

• Single source of truth: GPOs establish one standardised process design, eliminating fragmentation and local workarounds.
• Coordinated configuration: GPOs ensure all ERP configurations align to a single process design, including cross-functional dependencies (e.g. procure-to-pay intersecting with Procurement and Finance).
• Consistent decision-making: All process-related decisions flow through GPOs, preventing conflicting requirements from different business units.
• Unified accountability: GPOs are accountable for process performance across the entire organisation, creating incentive alignment for successful ERP adoption.
• Bridging data and system ownership: GPOs ensure process decisions are both technically reflected in the ERP and supported by clean, governed data, while sitting at the critical intersection between data and system ownership.
  

Without end-to-end process ownership, system deployments become scattered across many stakeholders with competing priorities, leading to inconsistent configurations and rework.

It can occur that organisations change their business model to respond to changing market dynamics or pursue new strategic opportunities. This strategic shift creates cascading effects across Finance capabilities and operating model design, and ultimately the existing ERP system configuration, potentially requiring adjustments.

The impact of such a business model evolution on an ERP system depends on the prioritisation of Finance capabilities during the assessment phase of the ERP transformation:

• Customised ERP solutions: Strategic and distinctive capabilities that operate on customized ERP solutions are tightly integrated with the business logic. When a business model change occurs, the customised ERP solution should be adjusted accordingly to accommodate this shift and preserve competitive advantage.
• Standard ERP solutions: Most capabilities rely on standard ERP solutions, which are business model and industry agnostic. Consequently, they require no adaptation but continue to operate as-is.
• The exception: When a business model change shifts a capability’s strategic importance, the corresponding ERP approach may need to be adjusted either through customisation or reverting to the standard solution.

Composable cloud ERP architecture and AI-driven intelligence simplify this selective adaptation. Their modular design and intelligent approach enable adjustments without disrupting the broader system, ensuring both agility and stability.