The CFO Playbook
Adapt, automate, accommodate: How CFOs can leverage technology to grow their business
Adapt, automate, accommodate: How CFOs can leverage technology to grow their business
Rahul Goel, CFO at Moglix, on how you can use technology to scale your finance team, and help your business thrive.
Listen to the full conversation
Financial leadership goes beyond the numbers and forecasting models – you need to know how to use and adapt technology to benefit the growth of your company.
Technology has been a vital resource for Rahul Goel, the Vice President of Finance at Moglix, a B2B marketplace for business supplies and industrial equipment.
His quest for an agile, tech-forward environment proved necessary to keep up with the skyrocketing demands Moglix experienced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
We recently interviewed Rahul on The CFO Playbook, where he shared his insights on how you can leverage technology to help your business grow.
Adapt
The key to agility is adaptability.
Rather than wait for a problem to arise, agile leaders stay a step ahead of the game and adapt quickly to new technologies.
Adaptability is a safeguard against financial hardship, Rahul says:
‘If you are not able to adapt to new technology, that’s the biggest mistake that you can make as a finance leader’.
Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you can jump from trend to trend. Instead, plan ahead and find the best tools to help streamline internal processes and create more bandwidth for your team.
While there is no ‘all-star’ software solution that can address every problem, according to Rahul:
‘[You have to determine] whether that solution, what you’re trying to implement, is scalable to make sure that you don’t have to re-implement the same solution with another software service provider one year down the line’.
The challenges your company faces will continue to evolve, but if you think three to five years ahead and adapt quickly, the technology you implement today will be better equipped to serve you in the long run.
Automate
Technology can help you automate routine processes, which in turn helps you scale your organization. For example, Rahul automates repetitive tasks to help eradicate errors commonly found in manual work.
He says: ‘You can use technology to scale up your operations rather than worry about somebody doing it manually with an error’.
Not only do you reduce the chance of errors, but you also give your team the ability to focus on high-level work.
Rahul sees technology as a tool that helps people do their jobs better:
‘Technology is always there to help you rather than take away jobs. My philosophy always is how you can level up your skillset through the use of technology’.
Rather than waste an employee’s time on tedious, manual tasks, allow your team to build on automated processes and focus on big-picture goals.
Accommodate
The technology you choose to implement should be flexible, consistent, and easy to integrate across all platforms.
According to Rahul:
‘Whenever you are trying to implement a new solution, look at an integrated approach rather than multiple softwares being implemented and trying to do what you can between different software tools’.
Make technology work for you, not against you. Look for tools that are integratable and scalable.
Become a tech-forward CFO
Technology is a constantly changing front, and it is up to you as a CFO to make sure your company has the tools it needs to push forward.
If you can utilize these three principles – adapt, automate, and accommodate – you’ll be better equipped to use financial technology to your advantage and help your business scale.
