This opinion piece by Damon Harding from the Digital Works Group first appeared in Triad’s recent eBook: The CFO in the 2020s: Finance and Intelligent Automation. The eBook researched Intelligent Automation within a finance function and how this is shaping the future role of finance leadership, featuring insights from CFOs and finance leaders in a variety of sectors.
The case for value drivers compared to KPIs alone – Finance and automation eBook article
Value drivers track what really defines success for an organisation and have proved to be particularly important to understand when selecting which processes to automate, and in maximising the benefits the automations deliver. Value drives include, but also transcend, traditional KPIs such as revenue, cost and profit.
They can include things like improving customer experience, improving brand or cause engagement, improving innovation, agility or efficiency, enabling digital capability or reducing risk.
Usually organisations will have between five to eight key things that really drive value.
Once these are understood, quantified and weighted, every programme and project can be scored against them. It’s important to ensure that automation projects also target the things that maximise value for an organisation, and that they contribute to the business’ ongoing improvement against those key measurements.
So, when considering the use of Intelligent Automation, we advise that business cases encompass more than simple financial metrics, such as capacity created and labour saved. By including key value drivers such as reduced administrative burden, which allows front-line staff to focus on building a connection with customers, a more comprehensive business case is created that will also align more closely to the benefits an automation delivers. As a result, including key value drivers ensures that investments in automation are prioritised according to their positive impact on the wider growth and improvement of the business.
Damon Harding, Strategy, Leadership and Innovation partner, Digital Works Group
The Digital Works Group (‘DWG’) help clients undertake successful business change for today’s digital age. Specialising in supporting companies as they adopt a customer-led approach throughout their strategy while identifying areas where digital can be used to meet these needs. Whether helping companies transform, turnaround, innovate for growth, or simply solving a specific digital pain-point. Bringing benefits in reach, revenue, profit or competitive positioning.
