FINANCIAL STRATEGY
CREDIT: VISA
By embedding AI directly into trusted workflows, finance functions can finally shift away from reactive reporting towards early intervention, disciplined execution and long-term value creation. As Vice President of Product Management for EMEA and APJ at Workday, Tim Wakeford drives the strategic direction of financial products across the region. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, he draws on extensive leadership experience, including serving as UK CFO at Cushman & Wakefield. In an exclusive interview with Finance Chief, Tim explains how, in his experience having managed complex private and public-sector operations, M & A is not as complicated as it needs to be with the introduction of AI.
What is a unified finance platform and how has it evolved in the last few years? A unified finance platform connects the core work of finance in one environment: financial management, planning, procurement, reporting and the workforce context that influences financial outcomes. Instead of relying on separate systems and spreadsheets that need to be constantly reconciled, finance teams can work from common data, processes, controls and definitions.
The scale of that challenge is clear in our latest research. 51 % of UK finance respondents say their organisation mostly works around core systems, while 79 % say different teams often disagree about whose numbers are correct. That’ s the operational cost of fragmentation – finance spends too much time reconciling information before it can act on it. The platforms we can leverage as finance leaders have evolved. In years past, a finance platform was limited to just a system of record that captured transactions and produced reports. Today, AI platforms are actively assisting the team, shifting from passive reporting to highlighting anomalies and automating complex reconciliations before humans even look at them. But the key is governance. Generalpurpose AI tools lack the financial context, security, controls and audit trails required to support high-stakes decisions. AI only becomes transformational in finance when it is designed to operate within established workflows and permissions.
What are some common issues with an M & A that finance leaders can run into? The hard part of M & A is rarely limited to just signing the deal. Creating one reliable operating model is equally hard. Finance leaders often inherit different charts of accounts, planning models, approval structures, reporting definitions and financial processes. Data may sit in disconnected systems, leaving integration teams to spend critical weeks or months
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