In 2021, our Gartner experts helped attendees address their most critical challenges. These four tracks kickstarted conversations around priorities and initiatives so that attendees could tackle what was most important to them. Take a look at what was covered in 2021 and check back for 2022 agenda updates!
The best CFOs catalyze rapid growth by determining the right costs to bring back in and how to protect the organization’s most-critical investments. This track focused on how to update the governance, and the data and analytics that drive these decisions.
Most finance leaders believe the finance organization must significantly accelerate its application of advanced digital technologies to effectively serve their business. This track highlighted how to effectively unlock the promise of the data, analytic and technology landscape.
Three trends are changing the course of finance forever: the democratization of data, increasing organizational complexity and the rising sophistication of digital technology. This track showed the impact of these trends on the finance organization’s comparative advantage.
Finance leaders need to build a different, digital set of talent and processes. This track highlighted which competencies are needed, how to accelerate skill development, and how to take advantage of digital technology advances to automate more processes and enhance judgment across the finance organization.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT
Dennis Gannon, VP, Advisory, Gartner
As CFOs chart their role in supporting the organization’s next wave of growth, important cross-functional initiatives aren’t nearly as prominent as they should be: organizational changes that might at first glance be seen as hype or buzzwords, but are in fact important, foundational changes for the enterprise. These changes are being led by the CFO’s peers, who have started to chart an entirely new course for the organization’s workplace; the organization’s digital business portfolio; and even the employment deal we have with our workforce. In all of these transformative agendas, the CFO will be asked to make difficult spending choices. They will be presented with potentially game-changing investments in people and technology that they know they can’t say ‘no’ to, but won’t be confident in the cost and risk implications of saying ‘yes’, either.
Without strategic changes to their operating style, CFOs will place their careers at risk by not imbuing these transformational agendas with strong financial rigor from the start. CFOs must get in early to shape the success of these initiatives, or they become an obstacle to progress on these mission-critical priorities. Join Dennis Gannon and your peers at Gartner’s opening keynote to learn about the extent of these transformative changes taking shape around the enterprise and the critical actions CFO need to take to be a catalyst, not inhibitor for positive change.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Brook Selassie, VP, Advisory, Gartner
The challenge: Amid an economic crisis and industry upheaval, CFOs and Finance Leaders find their companies at a challenging crossroad. While many have bolstered portfolio management discipline to drive business focus, analysis shows that most can still expect at least 40% of their strategic initiatives will fail. Join Gartner to learn how progressive firms protect long-term growth investments by reducing initiative drag.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:30 PM EDT
Leigh McMullen, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Whether it's in the board room or the big stage, having great is just part of the equation. This session is about how to TELL your story. How to structure it for different audiences and different formats, and how to make sure your message sticks!
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Vaughan Archer, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
Although digital investments largely survived the cost cuts of 2020, many companies are still underfunding digital. Learn how leading CFOs use cost savings winbacks to strengthen business leaders’ incentives to reduce costs and reinvest savings in activities that drive growth in a digital world.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 02:00 PM EDT
Dennis Gannon, VP, Advisory, Gartner
As business decision makers’ P&L expertise improves, the unique value of finance’s P&L-focused analytics and decision support declines. However, as finance organizations begin to reduce the P&L support they provide, they can’t afford to overlook how habitual a P&L-focused business partnership has become for both finance staff and the business. Join this session to learn about small-scale tactics for reducing finance-provided P&L support without disrupting finance or the business.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Stephen Adams, Director Analyst, Gartner
Executives are under pressure from investors, customers, employees and regulators to develop a sustainability narrative. CFOs are often at the forefront of environmental, social and governance initiatives but fail to integrate ESG within the company's financial brand. This session will explore how to sustainability align efforts with financial priorities and tell a cohesive story to stakeholders.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:30 PM EDT
Brook Selassie, VP, Advisory, Gartner
CFOs and Finance Leaders in all industries are keen to reset their strategy due to COVID-19 and its implications. Gartner has created four plausible end-scenarios, to help leaders understand how the future may unfold and what opportunities and risks those futures hold. This Workshop will introduce a practical toolkit that helps finance leaders engage with the business to assess and reset mission-critical priorities for success.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Tammy Shoham, Director Analyst, Gartner
Postpandemic office portfolios will be leaner and will need to serve a hybrid workforce. Technologies are emerging at a rapid pace to meet new space management needs. Learn what actions you should take today, and how to use new technologies once employees return the office, so that you can confidently rightsize your office portfolio and provide hybrid employees with the spaces they need.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:15 PM EDT
Nancy Queally, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Join your peers to discuss best practices for improving the accuracy and efficiency of data and analytics as well as how they are distributing to stakeholders for better decision-making.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 05:15 PM EDT
Dennis Gannon, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Finance leaders have been forced to rethink how well they've positioned their teams for the future and what investments they have made. These comparative advantages of Finance teams are where the business finds value that is truly differentiated from the other services and support they might draw upon. Learn how progressive CFOs are charting a course for the future of Finance that is built around the advantages that their functions can uniquely provide to the organization.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Leigh McMullen, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
In this light and entertaining session, Gartner analyst and futurist, Leigh McMullen uses the "Half Way to Star Trek" scenario to illustrate a method for predicting and rapidly responding to the future based on proven concepts from the Military-Effects-Based Operations planning doctrine.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:30 PM EDT
Dennis Gannon, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Randeep Rathindran, VP, Team Manager, Gartner
As business decision makers’ P&L expertise improves, the unique value of finance’s P&L-focused analytics and decision support declines. However, as finance organizations begin to reduce the P&L support they provide, they can’t afford to overlook how habitual a P&L-focused business partnership has become for both finance staff and the business. Join this session to learn about small-scale tactics for reducing finance-provided P&L support without disrupting finance or the business.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:30 PM EDT
Nicole Kyle, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
The real estate portfolio is ripe for cost cutting in an environment where remote work is normalized and a hybrid workforce requires less space. 72% of executives say that they will shrink the real estate portfolio in the next two years. How should you forecast a real estate portfolio of the future? In this session, facilitated by a Gartner expert, learn how peers are right-sizing their real estate portfolio and expenses.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Brook Selassie, VP, Advisory, Gartner
The pandemic escalated investments in digital capabilities and business models, leading to higher fixed costs for many firms. In an uncertain growth environment, how can CFOs offset higher digital costs by identifying and rightsizing costs across the firm? Join this session to learn the 3 strategic principles efficient growth companies follow to promote scale over scope in their cost base.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Nicole Kyle, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
With COVID-19's rapid expansion and accelerated normalization of remote work, a truly million-dollar question for executives is: why do we need workplaces in the future? This session explores why the office won't go extinct, but its value proposition — and thus your real estate portfolio — will change. In this session, facilitated by a Gartner expert, learn how peers are determining their workplace's unique purpose to maximize employee happiness and long-term performance, all while optimizing cost.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Nancy Queally, VP, Advisory, Gartner
As organizations confront the challenging task of navigating a post-crisis recovery, business leaders are contemplating aggressive targets aimed at dramatically improving performance. While grand aspirations are meant to surface opportunities, unachievable goals can do more harm than good. Join this session to learn how CFOs can influence business leaders to create the right degree of stretch in targets and unleash the true potential of the organization.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:30 PM EDT
Brook Selassie, VP, Advisory, Gartner
CFOs and Finance Leaders in all industries are keen to reset their strategy due to COVID-19 and its implications, including return to work and vaccination outcomes. Gartner has created four plausible end-state scenarios, to help leaders understand how the future may unfold and what opportunities and risks those futures hold. This Workshop will introduce a practical toolkit (along with an individual exercise and group discussion) that helps finance leaders engage with the business to assess mission-critical priorities, and reset capital allocation for critical strategic initiatives to enable success.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Mark Carroll, VP Analyst, Gartner
As CFOs seek to use balance sheet capital to accelerate digital transformation, technology capability-based acquisitions, or ‘techquisitions’, are playing an increasingly pivotal role. This session will address evolving practices in deal structuring, success metrics and integration in techquisitions vs. traditional M&A.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Vaughan Archer, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
Despite progress on digitalization, firms across industries are seeing returns eroded. Given long-term structural shifts and recent disruptive events, CFOs must rethink their investment governance frameworks to catalyze initiatives that efficiently differentiate their companies in a digital world.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 05:15 PM EDT
Dennis Gannon, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Finance leaders have been forced to rethink how well they've positioned their teams for the future and what investments they have made. These advantages are where the business finds value that is different from other services. Learn how progressive CFOs are charting a course for the future that is built around the advantages that their functions can uniquely provide to the organization.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Richard Ries, VP, Advisory, Gartner
The recent global pandemic has left most organizations in a fragile and uncertain state. However, new data and analytics technologies are stepping up to help organizations rapidly reconfigure to thrive after the reset. Join this session to learn about the 4 top data and analytics trends that will help finance strengthen its digital footprint in the coming year.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Cliff Struhar, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Eighty-percent of finance leaders agree finance must significantly accelerate its application of advanced digital technologies, to do this effectively, finance leaders can’t focus just on technical requirements. Join this session to learn how leading organizations are resetting finance teams’ mindsets toward digital, eliminating conservatism and boosting experimentation across finance technology project selection and implementation.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Dan Garvey, VP, Advisory, Gartner
The lack of clarity on finance's digital competencies is the biggest barrier to upskilling finance talent. Finance leaders will learn in this session which digital competencies matter most in finance and the knowledge, skills, and abilities their teams need for attaining these digital finance competencies.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Grant Nelson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Do you speak data? Of course you do! Come ask the experts on what it means to be data literate and how finance should take leadership roles to enable more data literate cultures.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Greg Leiter, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
This session will provide an overview of trends, along with financial management solutions' markets, and how to develop a long term strategy to support finance transformation.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Clement Christensen, Director, Advisory, Gartner
In the post-COVID-19 recovery period, organizations that can deploy AI will significantly outperform their peers on both the top and bottom line. However, finance leaders struggle to determine how to invest resources. This session will give finance leaders a framework to assess pilots, build a portfolio of analytics investments, and sequence them into a pipeline that delivers a competitive advantage.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Tim Faith, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
By 2022, 60% of Enterprises will pursue a Business-IT driven collaboration on Enterprise Applications. In a time where only 24% of Finance Transformations are viewed as 'delivering expected benefits' and 54% of data used by Finance is derived from outside of Finance, how can a Composable ERP strategy deliver better results for the Enterprise?
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Luis Pinto, Director Analyst, Gartner
CFOs are challenged to modernize their function and enable business transformation while operating with legacy systems. This Gartner session defines the role Procurement and CFOs should play in driving a modern ERP strategy to transform business operations and digitize the finance processes and enabling data driven insights.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Grant Nelson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Far too often, finance data and analytics leaders become embroiled in ambiguous data reconciliation. Though data hygiene may be a symptom they seek to cure, the root cause is based in business value. Learn how to best identify operational outcomes upon which to anchor governance initiatives, drive consensus and accelerate performance outcomes.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Robert Anderson, VP Analyst, Gartner
The emergence of extended planning and analysis or xP&A heralds a transformation of financial and operational planning by providing a single platform, along with the integration and support needed for finance and business teams to collaborate. This session will provide an outline on developing an approach for enterprise planning.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Clement Christensen, Director, Advisory, Gartner
New business models, new channels, new customers, new tools... same old metrics. Most finance teams haven't updated their metrics in years, but a new era of business demands a new set of KPIs and metrics. This session will teach attendees how to use drivers maps to modernize their KPI set for the digital age.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Dixie John, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Companies under competitive pressure to transform digitally struggle to sequence new capabilities with confidence. Organizations should start their transformation journey with a finance-first ERP deployment to quickly deliver improved business insights, then selectively modernize their portfolios over time.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Sanjay Champaneri, Director Analyst, Gartner
There isn’t a single answer to the question, “How should I charge internal customers for the services offered?” Some organizations do not charge, while some use a simple allocation methodology. Others use elaborate activity-based costing to determine variable-based models. Join this session to learn how shared services organizations can choose from several pricing models, each offering a different degree of influence over business unit customers.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Peter Nagy, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
External trends, including the democratization of data and analytics, rising organizational complexity, and the rising sophistication of digital technology, are fundamentally reshaping finance’s opportunities for unique value creation: its areas of comparative advantage. Join this session to understand how finance's comparative advantages are changing and learn how to update finance function strategy and organizational design accordingly.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Mark Carroll, VP Analyst, Gartner
As CFOs seek to use balance sheet capital to accelerate digital transformation, technology capability-based acquisitions, or ‘techquisitions’, are playing an increasingly pivotal role. This session will address evolving practices in deal structuring, success metrics, and integration in techquisitions vs. traditional M&A.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Allan Wilkins, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
Finance leaders’ interest in robotic process automation (RPA) continues to increase as cost optimization and a desire for upskilling their teams to drive more value added insight are top of mind for most organizations.
This session will discuss answers to questions such as:
a) The variety of RPA consulting and implementation services, and;
b) How to find, evaluate and select the right one(s) for you.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Sanjay Champaneri, Director Analyst, Gartner
A poorly managed partnership can significantly erode the expected value of a business process outsourcing (BPO) contract. With a sizable portion of finance shared services organization (SSO) budgets spent on outsourcing, finance leaders cannot afford to play a passive role in managing the partnership with their service provider. By focusing on four critical areas of provider management, leaders can help ensure sustained value from the outsourcing partnership.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Craig Risberg, VP, Advisory, Gartner
The dual forces of finance digitization and budget pressure require finance leaders to rethink the location of work. For many companies this represents a fundamental question about how much, what, where, and how to centralize finance activity sets. Join this session to learn what drives successful finance centralization efforts.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Craig Risberg, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Finance teams at growing organizations are being asked to play an ever larger role in analysis, planning, and decision support, yet the roadmap for building these capabilities is far from clear. In this session we will discuss: why, when, and how to build out or expand front-office capabilities; how to structure teams; and how to focus limited analytical resources to create the most value.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Joey Mixon, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Many finance leaders are considering an analytics center of excellence given the importance of analytics to future of many organizations. This session is for leaders considering an analytics COE, or those that have recently implemented a COE, and will provide guidance on which COE models may be best suited for which types of organizations.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Peter Nagy, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
The operational decision support focus of many finance organizations is no longer aligned to finance’s areas of comparative advantage. Most remain focused on supporting P&L-specific issues, despite rising P&L expertise within the business. Join this session to learn how leading finance organizations are accelerating the adoption of a balance sheet operational decision support focus.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Nisha Bhandare, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Lack of cross-functional collaboration in the planning cycle results in multiple plans, focused on maximizing departmental goals not aligned with the business strategy. In this session, Gartner will provide CFOs and FP&A leaders with a framework to define the role finance plays in product, commercial and supply chain planning to enable an integrated business plan for the organization.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Jake Dunne, Director, Advisory, Gartner
69% of finance leaders say that improving training is not effective for closing the increasing digital skill gap. Training is either developing outdated competencies or forces changes that are too aggressive. Leading finance teams achieve digital upskilling by developing a foundational level of digital skills and applying lessons from gamification to engage employees in building skills for the future.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Nancy Queally, VP, Advisory, Gartner
After a year of improvising and making politically charged resourcing trade-offs, CFOs recognize that business-as-usual budgeting, with its traditional inputs and standard approaches, is no longer fit for the task. Join this session to learn how the most progressive organizations have shifted to more flexible in-year resourcing adjustments, without compromising overall company target achievement and long term goals.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Regina Crowder, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Harnessing the full benefits of a rolling forecast process is one way in which finance leaders can take on a more strategic role within the organization. This research provides key recommendations on how FP&A leaders can overcome implementation complexities, design and organizational resistance.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:15 PM EDT
Anna Krasniewska, Group Vice President, Gartner
Many of the gains the finance function has made in employing women have been eroded due to the pandemic, and additional underrepresented groups continue to stall in progress. Join us for candid discussion on how peer organizations are working to eliminate bias, remove functional barriers and create career paths that advance talent in equitable ways.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Hilary Richards, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Change is the new normal for all finance organizations. Most resources dedicated to managing change are spent on large, periodic changes, however, the small changes we deal with far outpace these, and their collective impact can be more disruptive for employees. This requires employees to exert more effort to get their work done, impacting their mental energy - join this session to learn how to equip employees with tools and support to thrive amidst continuous change.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Mark McDonald, Director Analyst, Gartner
Join this roundtable to discuss the key AI concepts that are driving its popularity and what finance leaders need to know about the technology. Discuss with your peers various use cases and how they have overcome common challenges in implementing AI.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Nick Duffy, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Most functional leaders, including finance leaders, recognize they have a growing talent gap – they don’t have the talent they need to deliver on their digital ambitions. However, the dominant strategy finance leaders are using to close the gap is destined to fail. Join this session to learn about an underutilized strategy to close the gap: smarter work design.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Hilary Richards, VP, Advisory, Gartner
Digital initiatives are moving faster, leaving more internal controls and compliance teams behind. More financial reporting has potentially unmitigated risk or alternatively, caused compliance to overreact with excessive, burdensome governance. RPA governance, however, speaks to corporate controllers’ dual mandate — balancing effectiveness and efficiency. This session will discuss questions such as: what is the right operating model to govern RPA and how do you effectively identify RPA use cases for controls impact?