The CFO'S Perspective

With all the buzz around generative AI in business, many finance professionals are eagerly waiting to see what the future will hold for AI usage in accounting and finance. Overall, the sentiment seems to be positive, although many are taking a more cautious approach as they wait to see where and how it will be utilized. But while AI integration is still in its early days for most small to mid-sized businesses, companies of all sizes across all industries have been benefiting from Machine Learning (ML) for decades and can largely credit their success to doing so.

Back office operations are not always glamorous, but they are some of the most important daily functions for a company. Back office areas like IT, accounting, finance, HR, compliance, legal, and administrative activities work behind the scenes, making up the backbone of a company’s brand promise. Despite being non-customer-facing, the back office portion of an organization is every bit as important as the front office (which is made up of departments like sales, marketing, and customer support).

As such, investing in improving your company’s back office can result in both internal and external wins. Internally back office improvements can increase employee retention and enhance the workplace culture, while externally these improvements can boost profitability and revenue.

But with so many areas falling under the back office umbrella, uniting them under a single set of improvement initiatives is a difficult premise.