Finance executives don't know what they don't know it seems. Perhaps CIOs can help out.

A recent press release by Accenture reads, "Majority of Finance Organizations Need to Improve Operational Efficiency But Don't Know How Technology Can Help Achieve Change". From the press release on the Accenture study:

According to the findings, when asked to identify the major challenges facing their internal finance organizations, 78 percent of all respondents rated the need to improve operational efficiency as the top challenge. However, only 15 percent of the companies surveyed currently transact the majority (60 percent or more) of their accounts payable and accounts receivable functions on a fully automated basis. To date, the biggest barrier to a company adopting new transaction-processing technology, cited by 40 percent of respondents, was a lack of awareness within their organizations about what technology could actually do to improve transaction processing.

"The findings show that finance executives are challenged to improve efficiency and reduce the time and cost to process transactions, yet they are not widely embracing technology to achieve change," said Anoop Sagoo, a partner at Accenture Finance Solutions. "Technology can address these challenges by automating manual processes and integrating financial information. Many of our clients have found that outsourcing processes to a specialist provider is a good way to capture the benefits provided by technology and contribute to high performance in their businesses."

Perhaps Accenture can help out. Finance and accounting automation can be ugly areas. Lots of wrinkles. Finance and IT groups may find it hard to find the bandwidth to change when staffed to run the current course too.

Steve Shu