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Workday

Workday Adaptive Planning Customers See 249% ROI

November 21, 2023 by Revelwood

This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday, highlighting a recent Total Economic Impact Report from Forrester.

Calculating the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying a modern planning platform is no simple task—it’s a comprehensive undertaking and a job for the (objective) experts. That’s why we commissioned a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study by Forrester Consulting to understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with deploying Workday Adaptive Planning.

As part of its research, Forrester interviewed five of our customers. Prior to using Workday Adaptive Planning, these interviewees noted how their organizations relied largely on spreadsheets and manual processes for their financial planning and forecasting activities, either because they didn’t have other solutions in place or because their legacy planning solutions were difficult to use. Aggregating, manipulating, reconciling, and reporting on data was time-consuming and error-prone, limiting the depth of analysis the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) team could perform.

For a quick snapshot of the results (and they are significant), check out the Forrester Consulting infographic below. It explores how Workday Adaptive Planning helped the composite organization drive cost optimizations, increased FP&A productivity improvements, and delivered positive ROI, specifically:

  • Achieving 249% ROI
  • Reaching $2.30 million in net present value (NPV) 
  • Increasing FP&A productivity up to 20%

Download the full report here!

Read more from this series:

Unlocking Success: Harnessing Customer Satisfaction Metrics with Workday Adaptive Planning

Aged to Perfection: The Whiskey Model for Workday Adaptive Planning

Reusable Cash Flow Forecasting in the Solar Installation Industry

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Insights Tagged With: Forrester TEI report, roi, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning

How Artificial Intelligence will Impact the CFO

November 17, 2023 by Revelwood

FP&A Done Right

This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday. It is the first installment of Workday’s Q&AI video series.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way finance leaders operate worldwide. Sayan Chakraborty, co-president of Workday, shares how AI is supporting CFOs in managing a range of global challenges, such as disruptions in supply chains and inflation. In addition, he highlights how AI can enable cost management, overcome talent shortages, and implement new strategies. Watch the video to gain insight into the effects of AI on finance.

This post was originally published on the Workday Adaptive Planning blog.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

Fortune Interview with Workday’s CFO on Artificial Intelligence

The Power of the Growth Mindset: How CFOs Drive Success in Finance

Workday Adaptive Planning Recognized with the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Financial Planning Software

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: AI, Artificial Intelligence, CFO, Chief Financial Officer, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning

Increasing Accuracy in Forecasts by Using Workday Adaptive Planning with Incorta

November 16, 2023 by Revelwood

This is a guest post from Ardeshir Ghanbarzadeh, senior director of product marketing at our partner, Incorta. Ardeshir explains how the integration between Workday Adaptive Planning and Incorta helps FP&A leaders uncover opportunities, while also increasing accuracy.

FP&A leaders looking to increase the accuracy of forecasts and budgets need a comprehensive and detailed view of the financial and operational data that drives the business, and the ability to analyze this data, inform stakeholders and take appropriate action. However, many organizations today are challenged with the complexities of accessing complete, business-ready data from disparate sources in a timely and cost-effective way.

These challenges include:

  • Accessing complete data from multiple operational and financial systems
  • Identifying supply chain, inventory and cashflow bottlenecks in real time
  • Visibility to transactional details to analyze variances, trends and anomalies
  • Leveraging AI/ML to increase productivity and forecasting accuracy

Adding to these operational challenges are headwinds from today’s business and economic climate that have every organization looking to reduce costs without sacrificing productivity or growth.

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Incorta bridges the data gap and puts an end to the disjointed data experience by bringing together detailed, transaction-level data from Point-of-Sale, inventory, workforce, supply chain, ERP and financial systems including GL and subledger details, enabling FP&A teams to virtually eliminate guesswork and build highly accurate forecasting models. And since Incorta does not rely on traditional ETL processes and time-consuming batch loads, FP&A teams can access the latest actuals in minutes to quickly adjust forecasts and plans and stay on track to meet financial and operational objectives.

With the freedom to drill down into subledger details to investigate the veracity of topline metrics, variances and you can identify the key metrics that have a material financial and budgetary impact.

Adjust Plans with Ease

In a business environment where plans and forecasts are constantly changing, FP&A teams need immediate and granular visibility to new data to quickly respond and make adjustments that keep plans aligned with business strategy. However, limitations on data access combined with visibility to only topline metrics, aggregate values or subsets of data introduces uncertainty into the planning process. Incorta eliminates the complexities of accessing detailed data from ERP systems and business applications by quickly connecting and bringing together 100% of your financial and operational data, making it instantly available to Workday Adaptive Planning users for analysis.

Dramatically Better Forecasts

In the absence of complete, timely data organizations are forced to forecast and plan based on assumptions and experience. While some may be very good at this guessing game, it can lead to wide variances that negatively affect both operational efficiency and project budgets.

FP&A teams using Workday Adaptive Planning significantly increase the accuracy of their forecasts and budgets when using Incorta. With access to multisource transactional-level details from across the enterprise, users can drill any direction to analyze and identify anomalies, trends and operational bottlenecks that introduce risks and uncertainty into the forecasting and planning processes.

Embracing AI-lead Analysis

While the philosophical debate on whether AI will lead to humanity’s destruction or nirvana continues, knowledge workers need to leverage the capabilities of AI and machine learning tools and their benefits. AI-driven analysis of data at scale speeds up analysis by quickly finding anomalies, identifying areas of risk or even uncovering new opportunities that could take months to discover manually. Although AI insights are only as good as the data used to train, tune and deploy these capabilities. Inaccurate or partial datasets used to create ML models can lead to false predictions. In order to avoid this dilemma, data teams can uplevel their AI projects for FP&A with the benefit of complete, multisource data to support ML models and advanced analytics.

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Whether your organization relies on data from multiple ERP or EPM solutions, inventory management, operational or financial systems, Incorta can simplify access and delivery of complete, transaction-level data to Workday Adaptive Planning users at record speed so you can create a consistent experience for FP&A teams that drives continuous improvement of the planning and budgeting process.

In summary, Incorta helps Workday Adaptive Planning users:

  • Increase the accuracy of P&L models, workforce plans, and scenario analysis.
  • Get immediate access to detailed data from multiple POS, CRM, GL, inventory and operational systems.
  • Drill into subledger details to investigate variances and identify drivers with financial impact.
  • Eliminate guesswork with instant access to the latest actuals, quickly adjust forecasts and align scenario plans.

This blog post was originally published on the Incorta blog.

Read more about Data Analytics in Finance:

Bringing Operational Analytics to the Office of Finance

Incorta Recognized in 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI Platforms

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: Data Analytics in Finance Tagged With: Analytics Hub, Data Analytics, Data Warehouse, Incorta, Workday

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Data Cleansing with Microsoft Power Query

November 15, 2023 by Revelwood

In our last blog post on using Microsoft Power Query, we talked about using the tool to organize your data. Today we’ll look at using it for data cleansing. 

Data Cleansing with Microsoft Power Query

1. Handling Missing Values

Missing or incomplete data can lead to poor analysis and translation of data. Power Query lets you replace, remove, or fill in missing values according to your data quality requirements. To do this, select the column with missing data and right-click. In the new window, select fill and the desired fill direction. 

2. Standardizing Data

Inconsistent data formats can create confusion. Power Query helps you standardize data by applying formatting rules, such as converting text to lowercase or uppercase. Right-click after selecting a column and select transform in the new window, choose a desired output. 

3. Error Handling

Power Query allows you to identify and handle errors in your data. You can replace errors with specific values or filter them out entirely. To remove error simply highlight the column with the error and select the “Remove Rows” option on the home tab. From there select “Remove Errors.”

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4. Data Type Conversion

Ensuring that data types are consistent is crucial. Power Query automatically helps you by converting data types to match your analysis needs.

By harnessing the power of Power Query, you can unlock valuable insights from your data and make data-driven decisions with confidence. So, start using Power Query today, and take your data preparation skills to the next level!

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Workday Adaptive Planning partner. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. Combining the software with our best practices and out-of-the-box applications, we help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Limit the Drill Down List on a Workday Adaptive Planning Report

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Restrictions on Cube Sheets

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Metadata Loaders

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks Tagged With: IBM Planning Analytics database administration, Microsoft Power Query, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Data Organization with Microsoft Power Query

November 1, 2023 by Revelwood

In the world of business, data analysis and interpretation are essential to creating effective, well-informed decisions. However, messy and unorganized data can create serious roadblocks in this process, leading to inefficiencies, and lost opportunities. Fortunately, Microsoft Power Query is a powerful tool designed to eliminate the headaches and tedious tasks related to creating clean and accurate data. The first step is to organize your data.

What is Microsoft Power Query?

Microsoft Power Query is in Excel under the data tab under the “Get and Transform Data” group option. It is designed for data transformation that can also be used for other Microsoft applications such as Power BI and Power Automate. The tool allows users to connect to various data sources, transform data into the desired format, and load it into their preferred destination in ways that native Excel functions such as formulas and pivot tables cannot. 

Benefits of Using Microsoft Power Query

Data from Multiple Sources: Power Query acts as a one-stop shop for you to connect to a wide range of data sources, including databases, spreadsheets, web services, and more. This means you can gather data from multiple sources in one place for analysis.

Data Transformation: With Power Query’s intuitive interface, you can easily clean, reshape, and transform data without writing complex code. It offers a range of functions and transformations to suit your needs.

Automation: Power Query enables automation of data extraction and transformation processes. This reduces manual errors and saves time, especially when working with large datasets.

Reusable Queries and Data Volume: The tool saves a history of previous queries for future use. This allows users to reuse processes for similar datasets, saving time and effort. Additionally, queries can import copious records of data that would not fit into a standard Excel worksheet.  

Data Connection: Updates from the source data are seamlessly integrated into your Power Query process. This ensures that your analysis is always based on the most up-to-date information.

Data Organization with Power Query

1. Data Connection

To start organizing and cleaning data using Power Query, you need to establish a connection to your data source. In this example, the data is in an Excel worksheet as a table. 

Loading the table can be done via the “From Table/Range” option in Excel or the relevant data source connector in other Microsoft applications.

2. Data Import and Preview

Once your data source is connected, Power Query displays a preview of your data. This step allows you to review the data’s structure and make initial decisions about what needs to be cleaned or transformed.

3. Removing Duplicates

Duplicate data can skew your analysis. Power Query provides a simple way to remove duplicate rows, ensuring that your data is clean and accurate. To do this, highlight the desired columns and select “Remove Rows” and the “Remove Duplicates” option.

4. Filtering Data

You can filter data based on specific criteria. This can be helpful when you need to focus on a particular subset of your data. Find the drop-down menu above each column header to easily filter your data.

5. Data Transformation

Power Query provides a wide range of transformation options. You can perform tasks like splitting columns, merging data, renaming columns, and more. These transformations help you reshape the data to fit your analysis needs. To rename, simply double-click the column header and type the desired name.

6. Reporting

After making the desired changes to your data, return the data back to excel by selecting the “Close & Load” option and selecting “Close & Load To.” Then select the desired output in the following window. 

Additionally, Pivot tables can be used to retrieve data directly from Power Query. This can be helpful when the data set does not fit in a native Excel spreadsheet. To do this, select “Close & Load” in Power Query, and select “Close & Load To.” From the following dialogue box, select “Only Create Connection.” Now you can insert a Pivot Table using an external data source and select your query.

Microsoft Power Query is an indispensable tool for professionals working with data. Whether you’re dealing with financial records, customer information, or any other dataset, Power Query simplifies the process of data organization and cleansing, saving you time and ensuring data accuracy. 

Check back soon for our next blog post on Microsoft Power Query. We’ll share tips on using Microsoft Power Query to cleanse your data.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Workday Adaptive Planning partner. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. Combining the software with our best practices and out-of-the-box applications, we help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Limit the Drill Down List on a Workday Adaptive Planning Report

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Restrictions on Cube Sheets

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Metadata Loaders

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Adaptive Planning, Microsoft Power Query, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning demo, Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks

Fortune Interview with Workday’s CFO on Artificial Intelligence

October 27, 2023 by Revelwood

This article by Sheryl Estradada (Sheryl.Estrada@Fortune.com) originally appeared in Fortune’s CFO Daily newsletter.

Generative AI developments are moving at a rapid pace. And CFOs are tasked with understanding the latest trends as it relates to the workplace.

“It’s not like finance people who are savvy in technology can do it all themselves,” Zane Rowe, CFO at Workday, tells me. “What I love about technology is that it actually takes more than just anyone with one discipline to implement.” You have to bring a cross-functional group together to think about what type of strategic changes are needed, determine the technology to support it, and create a plan for change management, Rowe says. “I’m very fortunate to have a wealth of people that I know in different areas that keep me challenged and learning,” he says. 

Rowe began his role as finance chief at Workday (which is a CFO Daily sponsor) in June. The enterprise cloud company’s total annual revenues for its fiscal year 2023 were $6.22 billion, an increase of 21.0% from fiscal 2022. Rowe succeeded former Workday CFO Barbara Larson, who stepped back to spend more time with her family, according to the company.

Rowe was most recently CFO of VMware, a developer of virtualization software, for seven years. During that time, he served as interim CEO from February to May 2021. Before VMware, Rowe was the CFO at EMC. He was also previously CFO at United Airlines and Continental Airlines and then led North American sales for Apple. 

Working as a finance chief in the people-centric airline industry was actually a catalyst for his love of tech. “Back in those days with the airlines it was about growing internationally and connecting people, and technology became such a big part of underpinning that,” he says. “And then I shifted, and had an opportunity to work at Apple, and found my passion for technology and driving change.”

Rowe says Workday’s people, culture, and products attracted him to the CFO role. The company recently announced a series of new AI and machine learning (ML) enhancements for finance and HR solutions, including generative AI capabilities for creating job descriptions and employee growth plans, for example. In using AL and ML technology, “on the financial side, you can be looking at variance analysis, you can take a lot of the mundane tasks out of the everyday work week,” Rowe says.

What CFOs are thinking about GenAI

Generative AI, and its impact on productivity, continues to be a hot topic in the business community. Recent McKinsey research estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy.  

What’s Rowe hearing from fellow CFOs about investing in this technology? Companies that don’t prepare themselves for technological disruption run the risk of competitors capturing market share and taking business away, Rowe says. “I think many CFOs do recognize this,” he says.

“In the area of AI and the work going on there, a lot of the peer groups that I talk to are very inquisitive and want to learn a lot more about it,” he says. “I think the nature of the job has changed where I haven’t heard many CFOs pull back on that type of spending. In fact, they are encouraging it, to really understand where it adds value.”

According to Deloitte’s CFO Signals survey for Q3 2023, the finance chiefs surveyed said if their company decides to incorporate generative AI, these are the top three goals: to reduce costs (52%), provide better customer experience (50%), and achieve greater margins, efficiencies and productivity (45%), according to the report.

Thinking outside the box

Rowe still believes in being people-centric, so, since joining Workday, he’s been having a lot of conversations. “I’m spending a lot of time with customers to understand what we can do with the product, and spending time with our own product teams looking at cutting-edge ideas,” Rowe says. He’s also building out the finance and accounting teams, he says. 

What does he seek in a team member? Someone who can think outside of the box, according to Rowe. “We did a session fairly recently with our accounting team to think about how they can use AI to do processes a little bit more differently and creatively than they did before,” he says. You can find the original article on Fortune.com.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

The Power of the Growth Mindset: How CFOs Drive Success in Finance

Workday Adaptive Planning Recognized with the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Financial Planning Software

No, Artificial Intelligence Will Not Replace Finance Jobs

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: AI, Artificial Intelligence, CFO, Planning & Forecasting, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Using Display Fields in Modeled Sheets

October 26, 2023 by Robert Nordhagen

Modeled sheets in Workday Adaptive Planning often have no monthly data that displays on the sheet. To see the monthly calculations you must go to row details and create a report or create a separate sheet (standard or cube). However, you can see the calculated amounts in the sheet display by using the Display Column feature.

In this demo data, we see a typical Personnel modeled sheet. Notice there are no months. None of the calculated accounts such as Salary, FICA and Bonus are shown in a monthly display.

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However, the Salary column is shown and is the Salary that was loaded. Assume this file was loaded in January 2023 and now it is August 2023. We can go to the columns definition of the modeled sheet editor and select Display Columns:

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Which displays all the calculated accounts in a selection:

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Bring over Personnel Salary and we see the following options:

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Leaving the default options, we refresh the modeled sheet display to see a new field, Personnel Salary:

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Personnel Salary is showing the monthly salary cost. Notice for those making $120,000, the new field is displaying $10,000 for the monthly salary. We can change the parameter, “Number of time periods in Rollup Range” from 1 to 12 as shown:

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And the result is the monthly salary is now displaying the annual salary:

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To see how the different parameters affect the display consider the following scenarios.

  1. 1. Display 1 Year before Reference Time Period
  2. 2. Display Year Containing Reference Time Period
  3. 3. Display 1 year after Reference Time Period

To see the current time period, set the parameter and see the result:

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To see the 1 year later time period, set the parameter:

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Note: the Start of plan is Jul 2023. So, Year After Reference Time Period is Jan – Dec of 2024.

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Here, we can see that the salaries have increased by 3% which is the annual raise percentage. By switching from 1 month to 12 we get:

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These numbers represent the calendar year (Jan – Dec) after the reference period.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Workday Adaptive Planning partner. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. We help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning by combining the software with our best practices and expert guidance.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Restrictions on Cube Sheets

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Metadata Loaders

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Reordering Parent and Children Cube Accounts in Cube Sheets

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Financial Performance Management, Planning & Reporting, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks

Unlocking Success: Harnessing Customer Satisfaction Metrics with Workday Adaptive Planning

September 20, 2023 by Revelwood

In today’s competitive business landscape, customer satisfaction is more critical than ever. Happy customers are not only likely to stay loyal but also become advocates for your brand, driving growth through referrals and repeat business. Workday Adaptive Planning can help monitor customer satisfaction metrics and leverage the data for strategic decision-making, with a particular focus on the professional services industry.

The Importance of Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the backbone of any successful business, but it holds even more significance in the professional services sector. Here’s why:

1. Client Retention:

High customer satisfaction translates into strong client retention rates. Satisfied clients are more likely to continue using your services, providing a stable revenue stream.

2. Reliable Referrals:

Happy customers become your brand advocates. They are more inclined to recommend your services to others, leading to a steady influx of new clients through referrals.

3. Competitive Advantage:

Exceptional customer satisfaction sets you apart from your competitors. It’s a key differentiator that can make potential clients choose your services over others.

Leveraging Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning offers a powerful solution for tracking and utilizing customer satisfaction metrics. Here’s how it can help:

1. Integration with Customer Feedback Software:

Workday Adaptive Planning seamlessly integrates with customer feedback software like Zendesk or Monday. You can easily import customer satisfaction data into the platform, ensuring that teams across your organization have access to valuable insights.

2. Comprehensive Dashboard:

The platform provides an active dashboard displaying essential metrics such as average SLA, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and customer satisfaction. It also breaks down renewal rates by team leads. Conditional formatting helps identify areas where improvements can be made.

3. Drill-Down Capabilities:

With Workday Adaptive Planning, you can drill down into the data further. For example, you can explore specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as new references. This feature allows for in-depth analysis and customized reporting.

4. Informed Decision-Making:

By leveraging the data from customer satisfaction metrics, businesses can make informed decisions. Whether it’s retaining clients, generating references, or delivering projects on time, the platform offers insights to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

5. Industry-Specific Metrics:

Workday Adaptive Planning doesn’t just stop at basic metrics. It can provide additional details on industry-specific metrics, giving you a more comprehensive view of your performance within your sector.

In a world where customer satisfaction reigns supreme, Workday Adaptive Planning empowers businesses, especially those in the professional services industry, to turn data into actionable insights. By monitoring and analyzing customer satisfaction metrics, you can maintain your current customer base and drive business growth.

If you’re interested in diving deeper into other Adaptive use cases for professional services or want to explore how Workday Adaptive Planning can transform your organization, take a look at our Workday-approved framework for using Adaptive Planning to track customer satisfaction.

Read more from this series:

Aged to Perfection: The Whiskey Model for Workday Adaptive Planning

Reusable Cash Flow Forecasting in the Solar Installation Industry

What-if Analysis in Workday Adaptive Planning

Home » Workday » Page 7

Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Insights Tagged With: Customer Satisfaction, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Forecasting, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning

The Power of the Growth Mindset: How CFOs Drive Success in Finance

September 15, 2023 by Revelwood

FP&A Done Right: Finance’s Role in ESG Reporting

This is an excerpt from a blog post from our partner Workday Adaptive Planning. In It, A McKinsey & Company senior partner lays out five elements that help drive performance, and finance leaders from Adobe, e.l.f. Beauty, and TD Bank share their individual approaches to growth, in a Fortune virtual event.

For CFOs, a growth mindset means the ability to help their companies thrive by firing on multiple cylinders.

That’s according to Ishaan Seth, a senior partner and co-lead of global banking and securities practice at McKinsey & Company, who outlined a three-pronged approach that includes customer acquisition and retention, innovation, and building new businesses.

“The mindset that personifies the best growth leaders, be they CFOs or CEOs, are those who can help the company operate across all three of those areas at once,” Seth said in a Fortune webinar sponsored by Workday. “That’s the essence of the growth mindset.”

Developed by Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck, the concept of a “growth mindset” was based on research that found people enjoyed greater success when they believed their talents could be developed “through hard work, good strategies, and input from others.” The research also found effects for organizations: “When entire companies embrace a growth mindset, their employees report feeling far more empowered and committed; they also receive greater organizational support for collaboration and innovation,” Dweck wrote.

In practice, a growth mindset can be seen in the C-suite of successful organizations. Seth said McKinsey surveyed 2,500 public companies over the past two decades and found five variables that drive outperformance in relation to their peers.

  1. 1. Resource allocation. “How dynamically or fluidly are you reallocating resources to newer businesses and opportunities?” Seth said.
  2. 2. Mergers and acquisitions. “M&A and a constant portfolio pruning both on acquisition but equally on divestiture” is critical, Seth said. “Are you regenerating the base?”
  3. 3. Productivity and efficiency. Outpacing peers is important.
  4. 4. Technology and technology innovation. “It’s a space where the arms race to keep current has in many cases across industries outstripped the ability for companies to invest at the level to be on the leading edge,” Seth said.
  5. 5. Margin expansion. This is accomplished by refreshing the value proposition, he added.

When it comes to technology, finance leaders are uniquely positioned to drive innovation at scale by making the right investments and establishing the pace necessary to more quickly benefit from that technology—whether it’s artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), or generative AI.

Seth cited a McKinsey study that found generative AI could potentially add $2.6-$4.4 trillion per year to the global economy, noting that the United Kingdom’s entire GDP in 2021 was $3.1 trillion.

Finance leaders, then, must understand how to invest intelligently in technology and help set the pace at which to do so. 

“Is there a competitive advantage in getting to a higher-quality capability around whatever the technology may be 12 or 20 months sooner than your competitors?” Seth said. “The CFO can play an outsized role in driving speed as a source of competitive advantage.”

Seth added that calculating the return on investment (ROI) on technology spending might well require organizations to rethink their key performance indicators (KPIs), with CFOs driving the conversation around growth metrics.

The CFO, he said, owns the value creation story of a company. “We see the role of the CFO as being able to describe what it would take to double the market cap of the company in five years.”

Creating an Atmosphere of Innovation

To Mandy Fields, senior vice president and CFO at e.l.f. Beauty, leadership means promoting an organizational growth mindset by creating an environment that fosters innovation. 

“It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks, but it’s the manager’s job to make sure it’s safe for others to take them,” she said, attributing that ideal to the company’s 17 consecutive quarters of net sales growth—with a fourth quarter that saw sales growth of nearly 80%. “A lot of that has been not being afraid to take risks.”

As an example, Fields said e.l.f. Beauty in 2019 decided to invest in growing their presence on social media video platform TikTok, a move that resulted in “amazing” engagement. “As we went into the pandemic in 2020, when everybody was rushing in to figure out how to get on this platform, how to engage with the consumer, we were already there.”

Fields said the company holds annual off-site meetings to align its people to its priorities. “It helps us think about how we set an annual budget, but it really is an opportunity for inspiration, imagination, and possibility to converge,” she added. “That’s motivating for the team—not just for finance but for the entire company—to know that even though we’ve experienced this tremendous growth, there’s still so much more ahead of us.”

‘Be Constructively Unreasonable’

For enterprise software company Adobe, innovation is part of its DNA, according to Dan Durn, CFO and executive vice president, finance, technology services and operations. 

“We are consistently reinventing the company and engaging with customers in a way that’s very relevant for them,” he said. “Status quo is not a business strategy.”

Durn said understanding Adobe’s products “with granularity” helps the company innovate in order to serve customers better, making its growth and market position sustainable for the long run. He added that there’s “a velocity within the company” and clarity about innovation, as well as how to achieve growth via acquisitions. 

“We’re going to primarily be an organic, innovation-driven company,” Durn said. “But we will complement from time to time, and you can see that speed play out not only in our decision-making but the way we want to enable customers as well.”

The concept of a growth mindset—and continuous learning—is critical within a technology company, Durn said, offering a guiding leadership principle: “Be constructively unreasonable, which is that sweet spot of stretching people to more than they thought was possible and getting them to lean into problems and deliver more than they thought was possible.”

Growth on Personal and Organizational Levels

The variability in the macro environment, along with competition for customers in the retail banking space, keeps TD Bank CFO Xihao Hu focused on innovation on the customer-facing side as well as the back end. 

“We are working on enhancing our strategies to make sure we not only defend our turf but can continue to speed up our customer acquisitions, bring new customers in, and retain the loyal customer,” he said, adding that the bank had recently launched two new, unique credit card products and is looking at expanding its commercial banking into new geographies.

TD Bank’s growth mindset, Hu said, shows up on organizational and personal levels. “Once we had the strategy set, we embarked on a journey to tell the story across TD Bank in the U.S.,” he added, sharing in detail the bank’s plans with leaders who would then “take those stories back to their teams to cascade that sense of a mindset of growth.”

Hu also described a three-year blueprint for finance employees to improve their storytelling abilities to help TD Bank’s business partners grow. “We want to shift from a traditional role of overseers of past transactions into strategic partners to our finance employees,” he said.

Watch the full Fortune webcast “Emerging CFO: Maintaining a Growth Mindset in Turbulent Times.”

Read the full blog post on the Workday blog.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

Navigating the BPM Vendor Landscape: Key Insights from the 2023-2024 Report

Navigating Economic Volatility: Insights from CFOs

Workday Adaptive Planning Recognized with the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Financial Planning Software

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Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: Chief Financial Officer, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Forecasting, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning

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