IDC Study: CFOs to drive human-first, AI-fuelled future of work

LONDON, Jan. 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Unit4, a leader in enterprise cloud applications for people-centric organizations, today released findings from an IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Unit4, entitled "The Path to AI Everywhere: Exploring the Human Challenges," showing how CFOs can lead the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The study suggests AI can address the top challenges that it identifies CFOs are facing: achieving decision velocity (26%), managing compliance and risk (24%), coping with too many meetings and monthly reporting (22%). Success depends on finance teams building super use cases that demonstrate how organizations can fulfill IDC's vision for the pervasive adoption of AI working alongside humans, rather than replacing them.

The InfoBrief concludes that success hinges on a human-centric AI approach, engaging users in AI strategy development and upskilling employees for effective technology adoption. CFOs must heed this advice when building super use cases for the finance function, as AI adoption is not without pitfalls. IDC reports most AI plans stalled in 2024, urging CFOs to treat adoption as a strategic change management process to drive new business and improve operational models. Equally, IDC warns against overreliance on AI in finance, as it could lead to a lack of nuance and human interaction, as well as compliance oversight.

"The identification of use cases and, indeed, their prioritization is critical to the successful deployment of AI," said Tom Seal, Senior Research Director, European Enterprise Applications, IDC. "Beyond this, however, is the successful identification and deployment of super use cases. These are the ones that will drive efficiencies, provide accurate insight and generally empower the finance function to be more accurate and more impactful on the business."

Building the finance super use case

The CFO should focus on areas where AI can help deliver significant business outcomes, enhance resilience and boost organizational adaptability. The goals should not only include improved efficiency, but better risk management in shifting market conditions and greater adaptability to such volatility. Embracing AI will provide finance teams with support, such as "red flag" prompts that must be prioritized, as well as automating decisions using real-time insights, accelerating scenario planning and reducing payment friction through automated invoicing and approvals. Crucially, the CFO must establish solid foundations for AI adoption by understanding the underlying processes in different workflows and building a real-time, unified view of data across the organization to reduce errors and avoid bias. These steps are key to building confidence in the decisions taken autonomously by AI Agents.

"At Unit4, we've always believed the future of finance lies in becoming the storytellers of business performance," added Michael Lengenfelder, Global Solutions Architect FP&A, Unit4. "The arrival of AI will help to accelerate this transition to a more strategic role, as CFOs guide their colleagues in interpreting and understanding the impact of financial information on business forecasts and results. Yes, roles will evolve, but finance professionals will be critical to the successful adoption of AI ensuring it is transparent, compliant and delivering value to organizations."

Future vision for a decentralized finance function

IDC depicts a future where AI Agents are acting autonomously working alongside humans, which could lead to greater decentralization of the finance function. For this model to succeed, the CFO must lead closer collaboration with senior executives, as AI Agents empower them to make decisions independently based on real-time insights and analytics. Senior executives can only have confidence in these decisions if the CFO leads development of AI-enabled work to ensure integration between functional areas in the finance team and implements compliance policies that maintain the integrity of data used by AI tools.

About Unit4

Unit4's next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions power many of the world's mid-market organizations, bringing together the capabilities of Financials, Procurement, Project Management, HR, and FP&A to share real-time information, and deliver greater insights to help organizations become more effective. By combining our mid-market expertise with a relentless focus on people, we've built flexible solutions to meet customers' unique and changing needs. Unit4 serves more than 5,100 customers globally across a number of sectors including professional services, nonprofit and public sector, with customers including Southampton City Council, Metro Vancouver, Buro Happold, Devoteam, Save the Children International, Global Green Growth Institute and Oxfam America. For further information visit www.unit4.com.

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Media Contact:
Lisa Stassoulli
Global Communications Manager, Unit4
Mobile: +44(0)7870 916827
[email protected]

SOURCE Unit4