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For financial leaders, visibility into company expenses is a fundamental need, and better collaboration is the way to get it. When employees and groups in the organization are working better together, that means greater adoption and more data fed into the whole system ¨C data that can help leaders make more informed decisions. But how can you be certain that everyone has the tools they need to get the job done?

That¡¯s exactly what Oxford Economics set out to learn. The researcher conducted a?global survey of 1,500 finance executives?to discover what business leaders were doing that made their companies so successful. What they found could help other finance leaders follow suit.

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Download the full report to learn how?effective spend management boosts performance

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Staying Ahead of the Curve Is Critical

The changing business landscape has put greater demands on the CFO and other finance leaders, in addition to adding complexity to their jobs. As a result, finance leaders are far more likely than others at the business to say that the latest technologies are critically important.

Because CFOs shoulder so much responsibility, they have a greater need for data and the visibility that comes with it. More than 90% of finance leaders said that big data, the cloud, and security platforms are necessary for them to meet their goals. ¡°They are tech pioneers,¡± the report states, ¡°recognizing that today¡¯s emerging technologies are tomorrow¡¯s core tools.¡± It continues, ¡°In fact, our research shows that the further out one goes [on] the technology innovation curve, the wider the gap between finance leaders and other respondents.¡±

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Working Across the Business Has Huge Benefits

Many businesses suffer from data silos and the divides they create between departments. But few groups suffer the consequences like finance. By encouraging collaboration between finance and all of the other business units, not only will groups work better together, but finance will be better able to provide input to other areas of the business to boost performance.

According to the findings from Oxford Economics, the fastest-growing businesses had leadership that encouraged this kind of cross-functional collaboration. ¡°These executives see the connection between a collaborative finance function and business success, and they do all they can to inspire it.¡±

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Automation Can Help You Get There

Nearly a third of the respondents whose revenues grew by 5.1% to 10% over the past year credited automation with improving the finance function¡¯s efficiency, particularly in the areas of governance, risk, and compliance. New technology streamlined repetitive tasks and freed CFOs and their colleagues to focus on strategy. CFOs were also able to take advantage of big data, shared platforms, and cloud-based applications that foster collaboration and decrease complexity.

To see how the best run businesses use automation and collaboration tools to enable finance leadership to have a greater impact, read the?full report?from Oxford Economics.

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