It is undeniable that the Finance function is in dire need to keep up with the technological advancements to meet the demand of the market, and one of the things in the to-do list is upskilling its people.
A recent Gartner survey revealed that finance leaders think artificial intelligence, particularly GenAI, is set to impact organisational functions, as there are high levels of uncertainty among finance executives regarding the challenges surrounding the implementation of GenAI.
Finance leaders say GenAI will have the most impactful use case in forecast/budget variance explanations, anticipating revenue/spend data classification and management reports as the next most impactful use cases for GenAI in finance.
Giselle Arellano-Geronimo, vice president – head of finance, accounting & procurement at Shearwater Health talks on the importance of upskilling Finance for digital transformation, highlighting the role of AI in enhancing financial analysis while emphasising the need to develop soft skills and foster collaboration between different business functions.
Geronimo believes that amid the challenges of upskilling for digital transformation, diligence and resilience among finance professionals are vital in achieving business goals.
"The diligence, as part of the training and the very core of the finance professionals, is leading us to really adapt to this current chance of digitisation," Geronimo says.
While artificial intelligence and advanced technologies can boost financial analysis and decision-making processes through the automation of repetitive and mundane tasks, this also allows finance professionals to focus on understanding the business and making better decisions.
She notes that knowing their technical fields sometimes could be siloed to their processes, but stresses the need to truly understand macro business, saying deeper analytical skills have to be developed.
Geronimo believes that machines can be seen as partners in the workforce, but there is a need to upscale and develop soft skills among team members.
She says that the partnership of AI and human, versus the notion of 'AI over human' has to co-exist.
Giselle A Geronimo
"It's not like we have AI to let go of human, of the people... the human aspect of it, but it's that using the AI to take care of what's programmable, what's clerical."
Geronimo believes that there is a need to learn more, adapt, and grow along with the AI trend.
"This automation will help us program the repeated work," she adds.
Geronimo thinks this enables them as an industry to take more upskilling opportunities and focus on understanding the business better.
She concedes that some individuals may not be willing to upskill, but in this case, they can seek companies that still prefer human workers for certain tasks.
In addition, Geronimo draws emphasis on the importance of fostering collaboration between different business functions through the creation of common forums and venues for understanding and interpretation. She notes that listening and empathy skills are crucial in this process.
While there are data-objective ways to assess the skills, Geronimo says she is a believer in feedback, noting that interaction with the team members and other stakeholders helps a lot in addressing concerns and gaps more properly.
Arra Czarina Igno is an experienced News Writer with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry.
She is a media and communication professional with a Bachelor’s Degree focused in Broadcast Communication from Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
