Transforming Financial Management Operations

The Challenge

Organizations with financial management responsibilities must find ways to integrate the prioritization and alignment of strategic efforts to improve performance, accelerate the implementation and adoption of organizational improvements, and amplify the impacts of these efforts through the organization. The success of future finance leaders will depend on their ability to develop and execute a strategic vision to continuously improve operational effectiveness, engage and excite their workforce through knowledge management and capability building initiatives, and incorporate technology such as process automation and data analytics to enable and accelerate informed decision-making. An organization’s strategic vision must be successfully united with effective policy, governance, and change management activities, which enable sustainability of the organization’s transformation and promotes the adoption of these initiatives within the organization’s overall culture and way of working. Through the support of a strategic partner like Guidehouse, an effective and appropriate finance transformation program management methodology can be established. This approach enables clients to pull from a library of solution accelerators that have been successfully implemented across federal environments to quickly demonstrate the impact of the strategic transformation across the organization.

The Solution

Federal entities may consider optimizing their business processes, technology infrastructure, and workforce culture.

Strategic Plan Development & Execution
With a clearly established strategic plan and a tactical roadmap, agencies can execute their visions to modernize and, where appropriate, technology-enable its processes to enhance efficiency, consistency, and data integrity. This will also allow agencies to effectively measure progress made in achieving the organization’s objectives. These objectives could include standardized financial processes built on a foundation of advanced technology and developing and empowering the workforce through training and transparent communications. To enable strategic plan sustainability and execution, it is critical that organizations involve their workforce within the strategic planning process. Engaging the workforce throughout this process helps implement a sense of strategic vision, ownership, buy-in, and accountability to transform the culture and strive toward excellence.

Workforce Development
Agencies must constantly develop their workforces to meet changing business needs and maximize the use of newly available technology within the operating environment. Succession planning, talent management, talent acquisition, and strategic training efforts are essential to meet mission needs and adapt to new technology. Successful workforce management will strengthen the workforce and drive employee engagement by creating a joint sense of organizational ownership and mission-driven focus. As agencies enhance their processes and enhance their ability to perform mission-focused analysis and strategic thinking, tactical action is necessary to recruit, train, and retain the workforce of the future.

Process Modernization and Technology Enablement
The financial management environment may have opportunities to assess and modernize its processes and operations through manual and technology-enabled methods, to ultimately improve customer service, integrate functions to simplify and prevent duplication of efforts, automate processes, manage and harness data, improve internal controls, and facilitate timely reporting. Agencies have the ability to use open-source technologies such as process automation software, analytics platforms, and workflow management platforms through readily available technologies, like UiPath, ServiceNow, and Power Apps. These existing technology platforms are available and can help improve the organization’s operational effectiveness and overall maturity in a variety of areas when properly matched with the desired improvement outcomes.