The autonomous finance imperative

The need for automation across finance operations is driven by demands for efficiency, flexibility, and resilience in dynamic environments. With AI and its autonomous capabilities, finance organizations can “do more with less” and break down functional and process silos—unlocking new, actionable insights for smarter, faster decision-making. The power of data across millions of transactions coming to light—digitized, processed, and analyzed—becomes ready to deliver deeper business value.

O2C, S2P, and R2R process areas are poised for some of the greatest transformation from these capabilities due to the high degree of manual touch points that consume one of the most limited resources—time.

Source: CFO Signals survey results 3Q 2023

The road to autonomous finance transformation

Automation and AI—especially GenAI— may seem daunting for finance teams. The first challenge is where to begin. The CFO and finance team can start by developing a holistic strategy that considers impacts to finance talent, operating models, data, and technology for the transformation of end-to-end business processes.

There is no single road to Lights Out Finance, but business leaders should start with an understanding of their current state and desired future. Along the journey:

1. Consider checkpoints to assess foundational process, data, and technology capabilities: Standardize processes, improve data hygiene and governance, and modernize technology infrastructure—including core technologies such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and purpose-built finance automation solutions.
2. Accelerate capabilities with advanced AI technologies: Use a value-driven approach to identify opportunities to automate and augment human with machine interaction, leveraging a mix of traditional AI technologies—robotic process automation, visual AI, conversational AI, and more advanced ML and GenAI applications.
3. Navigate changes to finance delivery models: Evaluate both internal and third-party capabilities to deliver and transform finance operations.
4. Install brakes to safely go fast (for example, manage risk): Maintain control with appropriate governance and compliance over automated processes.
5. Construct mechanisms to monitor and continuously improve.

An integrated, value-driven approach to transforming finance operations can shift the outcome from automation of a discrete task—with potentially limited return on investment—to autonomous finance operations—where costs are contained and human capacity is freed to serve the enterprise more strategically.

Autonomous finance transformation with Lights Out Finance

Lights Out Finance, Deloitte’s approach to finance operations transformation, is a holistic, agile approach that aligns an organization’s strategic priorities to a transformation vision—translating them into a prioritized set of initiatives to advance finance technology, data, process, and talent for organizations. Deloitte’s breadth and scale allows for deep finance, industry, and technology knowledge to be delivered through unique engagement models that help clients meet the pace of change today.

Designed to initiate and accelerate the transformation process for organizations, Deloitte’s Finance Labs are immersive, full-day experiences that put AI technology into the hands of professionals, allowing a remarkable exploration, prioritization, and mobilization of the Lights Out Finance journey.

As technology continues to advance, CFOs and finance teams must navigate the implications (and opportunities) for finance operations. With AI redefining the way organizations operate into the future, unlock greater results with a holistic, end-to-end, and value-driven perspective to finance transformation. The speed to Lights Out Finance is accelerating, and Deloitte looks forward to your collaboration in the journey.

Download our full report now for a deep dive into our cutting-edge proprietary solutions and unique engagement models.