EXL helps CFOs make better strategic use of their data

Less than a quarter of CFOs leverage their data for strategic decision making, a problem EXL’s Digital Finance Suite platform sets out to resolve.

HFS Research conducted a study in partnership with EXL to understand enterprises’ data-driven-finance readiness. Exhibit 1 shows only 23% of finance leaders in our study believed their organization had reached Stage 3, where data gathering, analysis, and use is mature enough to help CFOs drive strategic decisions.

The rest (77%) were lagging. More than half of finance leaders surveyed believed their organizations were not fully mature in their data-driven journey, while 26% still needed to improve data quality to progress (Stage 1).

EXL, a key finance and accounting (F&A) sector service provider, has set out to help CFOs across the entire data-driven journey.

Exhibit 1: Less than a quarter of finance leaders make the most of their data

Sample: 207 F&A executives across Global 2000 enterprises, September 2022
Source: HFS Research, 2023

An integrated automation and insights platform supports the data journey

Taking cues from the findings of the HFS study and the market drive toward data-driven finance functions, EXL developed the Digital Finance Suite (DFS) platform. The integrated cloud-based automation and insights platform combines analytical talent with domain expertise and advanced digital technologies to drive data-led insights at speed.

The DFS platform has approximately 50 ready-to-use finance apps across the F&A value chain. It enables continuous refinement and extension of data, integrated data profiling, and incremental data-building capabilities. From this, the platform can deliver intelligent insights into client operations.

DFS’ modular and cloud-ready architecture supports quick full-scale deployment by staging data lakes with data connectors and APIs, with support continuing beyond the proof-of-concept (POC) stage.

With more than 15 client deployments and 10 POCs to date, the DFS platform is already impacting the industry. One of the outcomes is a vendor payment audit tool that has been successfully deployed for a global pharma company, a multinational financial services firm, and an F100 insurance provider. EXL has enabled savings of around $1 million for one business process outsourcing client using it to reduce duplicate payments.

One client mentioned, “EXL are true partners with clear analytics, thought leadership, and the capability of working with data.” However, we have yet to see the full impact since most implementations to date are in the POC phase, apart from a few completed deployments.

EXL targets the CFO agenda with data analysts, data scientists, and change managers and co-developing talent

CFOs need the support of data analysts and scientists to steer toward their data-driven results, and EXL has a pool of resources in this area to respond with. EXL is also investing in

• strengthening its F&A capabilities across the value chain;
• complementing the F&A team with talent support for tech, engineering, and change management; and
• building programs in strategic accounts to support innovation and talent co-development.

The Bottom Line: The EXL platform meets CFOs’ needs for better data quality and use of insights—now it must prove value.

CFOs whose enterprises are already at Stage 3 in Exhibit 1 need EXL’s platform the least. Those lagging in Stage 1 must look to EXL and its rivals for support in improving the quality of their financial data through warehousing and visualization. Data quality becomes ever more important with the arrival of generative AI and its potential for insight generation. Those at Stage 2 seek help feeding the insights they derive into their strategic decision making.

The DFS platform is a positive response to enterprises’ needs at either stage, supported by new investments such as the acquisition of Clairvoyant.ai. We look forward to more production case studies demonstrating the value impact such a response can have for clients.