Challenge
A fast-growing tech company in the on-demand app space was disrupting markets with its innovative platform but needed a back office to scale and support its growing portfolio and market presence. The company faced common challenges in moving from start-up to scale in managing its increasing financial complexity and expected growth. This included immature data management and governance, as well as transactional, forecasting, and reporting finance processes that depended heavily on manual inputs. To continue growing and seizing new opportunities, the company needed a full transformation to build a scalable, robust finance organization, anchored in redesigned processes leveraging a modern digital platform.
Discovery
Innosight and Huron assessed the company’s finance operations, uncovering inefficiencies in manual processes, fragmented data systems, and limited technology adoption. We benchmarked the company’s financial maturity, identifying gaps in data management, automation potential, and process efficiency.
Working closely with the company’s finance and leadership teams, we recognized that technology alone wasn’t enough – shifting the company’s culture and mindset was critical to unlocking the full potential of a digital transformation. This led to four key focus areas:
- Vision: Aligned leadership on a shared vision that extended beyond modernizing processes, focusing on what the finance function could achieve with advanced technology.
- Operating Model: Defined the structure, skills, and processes needed to scale and support strategic growth, ensuring the finance team could drive long-term value.
- Enabling Technologies: Integrated AI and automation within and to complement a comprehensive digital finance platform to streamline operations, improve data accuracy, and enhance system accountability.
- Governance: Established strong governance to ensure successful implementation, risk management, and value realization.
Impact
Through this transformation, the company’s office of the CFO has significantly accelerated its financial close, procurement, and order-to-cash processes, improved forecast accuracy, and enhanced overall data integrity. The result has been greater operational efficiency, clearer insights into business performance, and faster, more informed decisions.
Moreover, by coupling an optimized organizational structure with a continuous improvement mindset, teams are empowered to respond more swiftly to new opportunities. With a scalable finance function, the finance team can achieve its vision to fully partner with the broader business leadership and support its mission to be the most efficient and innovative platform for local commerce and mobility in its target markets.