Chief financial officers and treasurers are feeling squeezed in today’s market as they juggle multiple priorities, and they can look to technology and automation to relieve some of that burden.

Investing in technology can help companies reduce costs, manage growth and improve operational efficiencies — but 58% of companies don’t have a formal digital transformation plan, according to the report Pressure Points, Payments & Plans for Automation: The Road Ahead for CFOs and Treasurers by GTreasury and PNC Bank. The report surveyed 93 executives including chief financial officers, treasurers, assistant treasurers, and other treasury and finance leaders within the wholesale, manufacturing, information technology, real estate, engineering, government and health care industries.

“Not only will organizations be affected by economic headwinds out of their control, but the competitive disadvantages of failing to modernize and automate key functionality within finance and corporate treasury are growing by the day,” GTreasury Chief Executive Renaat Ver Eecke said in a release.

Although most respondents admitted to not having a formal plan for their digital strategy, the study found that automation is a priority for organizations in the next one to two years — and they’re looking to banking partners for electronic payments, transactions integrations and treasury systems.

The study found:

• 82% of respondents indicated that payments automation is critically important; and
• 71% of companies automate payments streams to banks using integration technology.

Payments automation priority

Respondents also shared which project initiatives they are likely to pursue, like automated payments.

CFOs said that benefits to payment automation include higher staff productivity, process efficiency, improved cash visibility, increased fraud protection, compliance assurance and modernized processes to meet demands of the digital economy.

The study also found:

• 82% of companies deemed payment automation capabilities of their primary bank to be extremely important; and
• 20% are dissatisfied with their current technology integration capabilities.

Digital strategy

To successfully implement a digital strategy, CFOs can start by prioritizing the bank’s automation needs, according to the report. To do that, CFOs can ask the following:

• What processes are the most time consuming?
• What process is the most prone to error?
• What tools can fill knowledge or experience gaps?

“Clearly, CFOs have an especially close eye on costs right now, but smart use of modern technology, such as embedded finance applications and automation, will reduce costly or redundant inefficiencies, while giving treasurers the best tools available to do their jobs,” Howard Forman, senior vice president and head of commercial digital channels for PNC Bank, said in the release.

Bank Automation Summit US 2023, taking place March 2-3 in Charlotte, is a crucial event on automation and automation technology in banking. Learn more and register for Bank Automation Summit US 2023.