New study from Yooz reveals the impact of shifting business priorities on finance professionals, highlighting increased stress levels and workload challenges with the potential of automation to alleviate these pressures.
Finance teams face increasing strain as economic pressures and shifting business demands challenge their ability to meet strategic goals and operational responsibilities. New research from cloud-based purchase-to-pay (P2P) automation provider Yooz shows that finance professionals deal with heavier workloads, longer hours, and rising stress levels. These pressures are further amplified by tighter budgets, leaving teams stretched thin and struggling to manage their workloads.
The 2024 Yooz Survey: Beyond the Balance Sheet, conducted by third-party platform Pollfish, examines both the impact of these challenges on finance teams and explores potential solutions.
The results reveal significant stress and frequent overtime are taking a toll on finance professionals’ well-being. While the majority of respondents believe automation could significantly reduce these pressures, misalignment between finance and IT departments and gaps in communication from leadership are hindering the full adoption of these technologies. Despite these hurdles, there is strong consensus that automation holds the key to improving efficiency and reducing stress across finance teams.
Catch more Fintech Insights : Global Fintech Series Interview with Jeff Marsden, Chief Product Officer at PureFacts
Key findings include:
- A vast majority (88%) of finance professionals report experiencing stress due to shifting business priorities, with 66% rating their stress levels as moderate to extreme. This stress is compounded by tighter budgets, with 92% reporting that budget constraints have impacted their ability to meet strategic goals, likely due to operational limitations around available technology and employee headcount.
- Work-life balance is significantly impacted, with 74% of finance professionals working overtime regularly over the past six months, and two-thirds thinking about work regularly during their personal time. This underscores the need for more efficient processes to improve workload management.
- There’s a strong consensus that automation technology is crucial for managing stress and improving efficiency, with 70% of finance professionals believing it could significantly or completely reduce stress caused by shifting business priorities. However, disconnect between finance and IT hinders fintech adoption, with issues flagged such as red tape, communication struggles, and misalignment between CFOs and CTOs.
- Communication needs improvement, with half of the respondents rating how their organization’s leadership communicates about economic challenges and their impact on finance as sub-par. Additionally, there’s a notable difference in how CFOs and their teams perceive the value of their input. While nearly three-quarters of CFOs (73%) feel their own input is frequently valued, less than half of other finance team members (41%) share this sentiment. This highlights the need for more open communication across silos, and better alignment between leadership expectations and the operational realities faced by finance teams.
Yooz’s CEO Laurent Charpentier explains: “Our study shows the significant strain finance professionals face from shifting priorities and tighter budgets. The data highlights the critical role automation can play—boosting efficiency, reducing stress, and managing workloads more effectively. To thrive, organizations must align leadership expectations with operational realities and leverage technology to support their finance teams in this challenging landscape.”
The 2024 Yooz Survey: Beyond the Balance Sheet was conducted in August 2024 by Pollfish, surveying 500 U.S. finance professionals over the age of 18, comprising 135 CFOs and 365 other finance professionals with annual household incomes of at least $50,000.
Yooz provides the smartest, most powerful, and easiest-to-use cloud-based E-invoicing and Purchase-to-Pay (P2P) automation solution. It delivers unmatched savings, speed, and security with affordable zero-risk subscriptions to more than 5,000 customers and 300,000 users worldwide. Yooz’s unique solution leverages Artificial Intelligence and RPA technologies to deliver an amazing level of automation with extreme simplicity, traceability, and end-to-end customizable features.
Read More on Fintech : Global Fintech Series Interview with Frank Pagano, Executive Sales Director at VizyPay
[To share your insights with us, please write to psen@itechseries.com ]
