FIC
taming your robots
Win with tech
CFOs reveal that it’s no longer about what technology can do, but what finance professionals do with it.
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BY ANG LLOYD
n enlightening, tech-centred conversation was hosted by CFO South Africa’s community manager, Brian Chivere, and featured panellists Tamuka Mpofu, CFO at Finclusion Group, Paul St Quintin, intelligent automation capability lead at EY Africa, Beyond Mobility CFO Veliswa Rozani, and Riaan Koppeschaar, financial director of Exxaro Resources. The interactive conversation was enabled in partnership with Kyriba, a complete treasury management solution. Keith Stewart, sales manager at Kyriba, began the session with a short presentation about the company and how their platform can benefit CFOs, particularly in the South African market, as the Dubaiheadquartered Kyriba recently opened an office in Johannesburg. According to Keith, Kyriba’s cloud-based platform is used in over 140 countries, and it has 65,000 active users. It began as a SaaS platform in 2002 but has since evolved into an “active enterprise liquidity management system” to assist with strategic finance objectives, risk man-
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agement, visibility, reporting decisions, and intelligent insights. In fact, a recent International Data Corporation report ranked Kyriba as one of the global leaders in the finance management industry.
Tech saves time Paul began the conversation by talking about limitations – or rather, the lack thereof. “It’s no longer about technology and what it can do, but what we do with it,” emphasised Paul. He added, “We have to ask ourselves, ‘What are the things that we, as the finance function, need to do to achieve our strategic objectives?’ Then, from an operational or client perspective, what do we need to activate to achieve that; what digital capabilities are needed to deliver fundamental value?” According to Paul, tech can help CFOs be more effective at their jobs – it’s not about replacing humans, it’s about ‘taming robots’. “The focus right now is how to leverage technology so that it helps us become more effective and efficient,” he said.
