These functions are routine in nature and historically have been people intensive. Control and risk management encompasses budgeting, internal audit and treasury management, in addition to many other major internal financial activities. Strategic planning support and related tasks make up the decision support element of the finance function s responsibilities. Many surveys in North America have shown that process redesign applications favor finance as their top priority. One of the major reasons is cost.
Finance is an expensive function.
By redirecting resources to decision support, finance can do more for an organization and do it for less. Developed in the era of mainframe programming languages, many systems are costly to maintain and difficult to change as business conditions evolve. A third reason for redesigning the finance function is to release the value-creating potential of this often overlooked resource of the organization. As the finance function is redesigned, time consuming transaction-processing is streamlined or eliminated, freeing valuable financial resources for active participation in plotting the strategies and tactics of the organization. Members of the management team making this transition to value-adding normally require retraining.