This year's Strategy Execution Award recognises CFOs that have successfully adapted their organisations to the changing needs of the modern business world.
Workday, a cloud solutions company for finance and human resources, will be supporting the Strategy Execution Award at the 2024 CFO Awards, which will take place at Inanda Club on 13 November.
“At Workday, we believe in celebrating the brilliance and dedication of CFOs who dream big, manage massive complexity and deliver exceptional results,” says Kiv Moodley, the country managing director of Workday.
“By recognising the winner of this award, Workday wishes to inspire, enable and empower the next generation of finance leaders,” she adds.
Kiv and her team at Workday have been a great partner of the CFO community since 2018, and in June this year, they hosted Workday Elevate, an event to introduce our CFOs to AI features for better financial management solutions.
Speaking about how their AI-driven platforms are supporting CFOs in the implementation of their strategies, Kiv said: “CFOs can futureproof their organisations by leveraging AI-driven platforms like Workday. These platforms enable enhanced decision-making and risk mitigation through predictive analytics, providing leapfrog opportunities to surpass competitors that are not AI-enabled, and deliver extraordinary shareholder value.”
As Workday continues to tap into the growing interest of AI within the South African financial market, Kiv and her team at Workday remain committed to the opportunities that lie ahead while also highlighting problems that need to be addressed.
According to Kiv, these are some of the challenges facing CFOs going into 2025, these include:
- economic uncertainty such as fluctuating economic conditions, inflation, interest rates and loadshedding
- cybersecurity threats in the form of avoiding data breaches of sensitive financial data)
- regulatory complexity, which involves the evolving reporting standards as well as the multi-geographic finance compliance
- and lastly, the war for talent in a globally competitive and fluid market.
However, there is room for opportunities for growth and change if CFOs play a more strategic role in shaping their companies’ direction through the use of AI, machine learning and automation, remarked Kiv, as she listed some of the opportunities that CFOs are likely to see for 2025 and onwards. These include:
- enhanced role in their business strategy as more of a strategic advisor helping to shape the overall direction of the business
- significant reduction in operational expense by leveraging AI, machine learning, and automation to streamline processes to improve decision-making in less time and with less effort to improve the bottom line
- enhancing investor relations by making use of better tools for insights to communicate their financial performance
- attracting more capital by improving investor confidence and gain better value from Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)
The ‘Strategy Execution Award’ recognises CFOs that have successfully adapted their organisations to changing demands and challenges by responding promptly and efficiently. These CFOs have demonstrated outstanding leadership by creating the required financial circumstances to carry out the strategy while keeping the company financially healthy and competitive.
