The name of the game is digitization for organizations across all industries, thanks to the “new normal” of working from home amid the pandemic. But what does the process of digital adoption actually look like from the vantage point of the CFO?
For Andy Brown, CFO at education technology company Chegg, there was a plethora of opportunities to embrace by collaborating with third-party FinTech partners.
“Interestingly enough, I would actually say the pandemic has been helpful to us, because it’s made us think more about how we can use technology to solve some of our problems,” Brown told PYMNTS in a recent interview.
While Chegg — which offers a range of educational services including textbook rentals and help with homework — is a digital-native firm, paper and manual processes were still a reality in some areas of back-office financial workflows. Brown dove into Chegg’s strategy to address those pain points that could no longer serve the organization in today’s environment, and explored how CFOs can offer strategic guidance to their firms embracing the modernization opportunity.
Embracing Existing Partners
Though virtually all financial workflows stand to benefit from digitization efforts, there were several processes that faced particular urgency to modernize. Payables and accounting operations overall — “the machinery of paying and getting paid,” as Brown explained — topped the list.
“Simple things like someone wanting a manual check,” he said. “Manual checks don’t exist in a COVID environment. You have to find other solutions.”
Embracing FinTech platforms was key to supporting these digitization initiatives — but while discovering new, third-party partners that meet businesses’ needs can be a challenge, Brown noted that existing FinTech partners played an instrumental role, thanks to Chegg’s ability to adopt expanded functionality offered by solution providers.
For instance, Chegg already uses NetSuite’s ERP system, and the company adopted additional functionality offered by NetSuite for a more seamless adoption process. Similarly, Chegg adopted Coupa toward the beginning of the year; when COVID hit, the company decided to implement more of Coupa’s offerings in the form of the FinTech’s payments service, Coupa Pay.
The strategy reveals that organizations don’t necessarily have to look far to find solutions that fit their needs and can be seamlessly adopted.
That’s not to say, however, that technology can address every pain point. Amid work-from-home requirements, Brown noted that the loss of an in-person collaborative environment has been particularly difficult, and a pain point that digital solutions like Slack don’t entirely fill. At the same time, certain workflows at Chegg were already digital — like payroll — meaning the pandemic hasn’t necessarily had a dramatic impact on every area of the financial back office.
Finding the New Normal
Even after professionals return to the office, Brown said that many of the digital changes Chegg has implemented will be permanent fixtures in a post-COVID environment. They will continue to be vital as businesses embrace the new normal of what is likely to be a hybrid of in-office and remote working, with professionals likely to work from home at least a few days a week moving forward.
“We don’t know what the new normal will look like,” said Brown. “But we recognize that we can run a finance department virtually.”
The pandemic continues to introduce many firsts for businesses forced to embrace a fully digital ecosystem. For Chegg and many other firms, that means the first time going through a virtual audit, and going through quarterly reviews with auditors via virtual communication platforms.
While these can be scary and uncomfortable experiences, chief financial officers have the opportunity to guide their organizations’ digitization efforts at the broader level to embrace change and emerging opportunities to optimize a range of workflows in the back office.
According to Brown, the CFOs who understand this opportunity will see the most success in driving an agile, digital and adaptable organization.
“The traditional view of the CFO is that they just count the beans and report the numbers — and that is not what a CFO really does, if they’re good at what they do,” he said. “To me, a CFO is about being part of the strategy of the company and developing a culture within a company. How we fundamentally run the company, the CFO has to be involved with that.”