Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference Sydney: Day 1 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference, taking place this week in Sydney. Below is a collection of key announcements and insights coming out of the conference.

On Day 1 of the conference we are highlighting how to attract and retain digital finance talent, some tactics to help bring success in finance transformation and new ways to create data storylines in a digital, self-service era. Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates.

• Gartner Finance Survey Reveals CRM Technologies Are the Most Valued in the Finance Function

Presented by Alexander Bant, Chief of Research for CFOs at Gartner

Digital finance talent is 63% more likely to leave than core finance talent and is 69% more costly to hire. In this session, Alexander Bant, Chief of Research for CFOs at Gartner, explained why digital finance staff become dissatisfied and the best way to retain them. 

• “There’s an increasing level of frustration being expressed by digital finance talent. They feel a lack of support from stakeholders, they’re overwhelmed by the volume of low-value work they’re asked to perform, and they’re limited by existing technologies available to them.”

• “CFOs aim to expand the digital finance talent pool to 46% of the finance function by 2027.”

• “Provide digital and core finance workers with recurring collaboration opportunities to help build and nurture a sense of belonging in finance.”

• “Instead of providing digital finance talent with role-based career paths, embrace an experience-based approach that enables workers to build domain expertise at different experience levels.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Rob van der Meulen at rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com.

Presented by Geraldine Garaud, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Many finance leaders report they aren’t making good headway with finance transformation. In this session, Geraldine Garaud, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, went over some often underused routes to success.

• "People typically perceive finance transformation in one of three ways: as a threat, a burden, or an opportunity."

• "To move people towards seeing finance transformation as an opportunity, transformation leaders must sell their vision: What are we going to be known for? What impact are we going to have? How are we going to deliver our service?"

• "When communicating transformation ambitions, leaders need to tailor their message and communication channel for their different audiences."

• "Transformation leaders must account for staff readiness. Even the best teams in the world won’t make much progress if they are carrying past transformation scars and are change fatigued."

• "Finance transformations are often significantly delayed because they try to implement too much too soon, trying to implement every ad-hoc request from stakeholders rather than taking a step back and questioning whether an activity makes sense to perform."

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Rob van der Meulen at rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com.

Presented by Sid Sahoo, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

It’s important to weave a story when sharing data to create the best chances of the audience retaining and acting on that information. However, many companies are finding this harder with new self-service tools. In this presentation, Sid Sahoo, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, explored how companies can update their approach to data storytelling for a digital era.

• “Finance often makes the mistake of trying to tell linear stories with non-linear tools.”

• “Storytelling in a self-service environment is more akin to a ‘choose your own adventure’ (CYOA) story than a traditional book.”

• “There are two essential steps to telling a good CYOA story. First, you need to structure narrative clusters, so the story remains coherent as you explore it. Second, design narrative chains to guide the audience down a path that leads to an intuitive conclusion.”

• “In data storytelling language: structure data relationships and design data story plotlines that make sense to the readers.” 

• “Graph analytics and decision intelligence are essential finance capabilities to do this: Graph analytics reveal the narrative clusters of data points and the relationships between them. Decision intelligence is how to start to better understand the intuition of the readers.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Rob van der Meulen at rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com.