Integrating Data, Utilizing Automation and Measuring KPIs

Data is at the core of every business. How an enterprise uses that data can provide the power to make better decisions. 

The intersection of data, automation and key performance indicators (KPIs) can offer a powerful resource for understanding the opportunities and challenges of your business. The good news is that data is everywhere: in finance, operations, HR, sales, service, marketing, and R&D. And automation means integrating that data with a minimum of manual input and transfers, ensuring speed and accuracy of the input, with more time to assess the output. Last, KPIs provide a benchmark against which goals and outcomes can be measured and adjusted.

With automated systems, business units can focus less on transaction processing and more on analysis and action. Automation can also allow for the detection of anomalies, at-the-ready electronic evidence, always-on auditing and other control systems.

KPIs help compare your performance against internal goals as well as external ones. With the quick turnaround of an integrated system, time can be spent assessing and evaluating the conclusions.

Business leaders need to respond quickly to internal and external events, therefore the ability to continuously recalibrate with current data is fundamental to navigating a dynamic environment.

“An intelligent data core with a single system to ingest and enrich data is critical for agile decision making,” noted Kae Arima, Vice President, Finance, Workday.

She continued, “At Workday, the Office of the CFO is instrumental in helping drive growth for the organization. We ‘drink our own champagne,’ and use Workday Adaptive to reduce the time to run what-if scenario planning and model how potential investments could fuel growth in addition to meeting our overall corporate targets. This allows our leadership team to make investment decisions more confidently in key growth areas.”

The changing landscape of the pandemic has added another balancing act to the role of the CFO. Bringing together planning, modeling and the core system of record allows access to real-time assessments and better decision-making. 

Diving into data can sometimes seem overwhelming. But with a clear objective and “take charge” commitment to both reliable input and output, businesses are deploying new and continually expanding ways for integrating analytics into day-to-day business operations and excellence.