The State of Strategic Finance 2025: AI Adoption, Collaboration and Technology Gaps

[00:00:15] Melissa Howatson Welcome to The CFO Show. I'm your host, Melissa Howatson, CFO of Vena. Before we begin today's show, I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join me at Excelerate Finance 2025. This year's event takes place in Las Vegas from May 12th to 15th and features a dedicated track for CFOs and aspiring executives, plus keynotes and panels with finance leaders who are redefining what's possible in FP&A. Visit exceleratesummit.com to get your ticket and learn more. After a tumultuous few years, how are finance professionals doing? In “Vena's State of Strategic Finance 2025” report, that's what we wanted to find out. We set out to uncover what business and economic concerns were top of mind for finance leaders. How they're thinking about their role across the broader organization? Where their processes could use improvement? And how they're approaching disruptive technologies, like AI? We analyze the responses of over 200 finance professionals, and their answers may surprise you. Joining me today is Craig Schiff, founder and CEO of BPM Partners. Craig is a pioneer in business performance management. As a founding member of IMRS Hyperion Software, he helped create and define the field as it evolved from generic business intelligence and analytical applications into BPM. Craig, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to discuss the results of the survey with you today. Now, I know we've had you on the show before, but in case we have some listeners who didn't catch you some of the last times, wondering if you could give some brief information about your background and about BPM Partners.

[00:02:05] Craig Schiff Sure. So I head up BPM Partners, a management consulting firm that helps companies put together their requirements and then ultimately select the correct technology solutions to address those requirements, particularly focused on budgeting, planning, consolidation and reporting. I've been in this industry a very long time. I was part of the founding team at Hyperion in the early 80s, eventually, of course, got acquired by Oracle. And I also started a company called Outlooksoft, which SAP acquired to become their SAP BPC product, which they've since sunset it, of course. And now I head up BPM Partners for the past 20 years or so. Happy to be here.

[00:02:44] Melissa Howatson We recently conducted a survey, Vena, with assistance from BPM Partners. Could you give a little bit more background about the survey and what it was we were aiming for with the results?

[00:02:58] Craig Schiff Right. So, it was the 2025 edition of the “Vena Strategic Finance Industry Benchmark” survey. We're looking to see really the current state of finance, what they felt about their prospects in the economic environment, what they felt about the finance department, the opportunities for people, their role within their companies, how well they are connected with the other departments in the company, and what some of their challenges were. And of course, we did touch on technology and AI, and see where they were with those initiatives as well. So it was really a pretty comprehensive survey focused really on accounting and finance people.

[00:03:35] Melissa Howatson And it's always fun when we get these results back and we can distill and say, okay, what are the insights now that we're gaining? And I'm really excited for you and I today to discuss really six key themes that came out in the results. And so jumping into the first one, it was around optimism, which it's been a while, I think, since we heard optimism coming through. Can you give a little more detail around what we saw there?

[00:04:04] Craig Schiff Yeah. It was a pleasant surprise. We do a lot of these surveys, and people have all sorts of things they're not happy about or pessimistic about. And to see kind of the overwhelming optimism of this particular cohort that participated in the survey, and it was pretty consistent. I mean, you know, there were hundreds of people taking the survey, and throughout all of them, they were pretty optimistic about lots of things, about their role in the company, about their departments, about the respect they received, about the technology they were using, about their planning processes. I mean, they were just happy about, well, let's say almost everything. You know, the only negativity really was we had a question of, in terms of the economic environment, the market conditions they're operating in, you know, if they had any concerns. And there they did have concerns. And what rose to the top there was inflation, high interest rates, and economic uncertainty. And those are very valid and kind of validates because sometimes when you look at survey results, you wonder, are these guys just checking off the boxes they think we want to hear or what they really believe? And when they did that, that obviously resonates with all of us, fairly accurate assessment of the environment. And then when you're look at when the survey was taken, it was taken in November. Most of the responses came in right after the U.S. Presidential election. So some of the optimism in there may have been a hope for a change in the economic environment with a new administration coming in. Looking at regulatory requirements, corporate tax rates, and other things that they might have hoped for, that would be an outcome of this election. So, you know, I usually don't like to factor politics into these assessments, but when you take a look at this, it's important to note the timing because that did impact these results, I believe, in terms of what they're expecting what the potential upside for businesses was.

[00:05:59] Melissa Howatson And that's excellent to see, because I think for folks like me in finance, it's easy for us to feel like we're getting stuck in this rut and ongoing uncertainty and this new thing and that new challenge coming our way. And it's really nice when you step back and reflect on where we are to see that optimism starting to come through. I was really happy, happy to see that, and I would say I feel that myself as well when I was reflecting on the state of finance. Certainly, there's always going to be those challenges that we're all going to be dealing with, but nice to see that coming through. The second area where we found a theme coming through was in terms of how people are feeling about finance and the strategic seat we're taking at the table, and the ability to partner with the rest of the business. What came through around that?

[00:06:50] Craig Schiff So we've all been talking about this for many years. We talk about business partnering, but based on these survey results and not just the survey, the thing we see in our day-to-day job working with other customers, are looking at solutions. So, we work with their finance teams, is that finance is absolutely playing a more strategic role and a broader role in the company. I mean, as we take a look at the explosion of operational planning. Looking at sales performance management, revenue planning, workforce planning, that touches on other departments in the company. And someone has to drive all of this and pull this all together. And who does that? Well, the CFO, but the finance department along with them. And so they're playing this broader role. And because of that, because they're working with every department and kind of getting everyone aligned and operating as a team to deal with the challenging environment we're trying to navigate. They're also involved in the strategy discussions because they have their finger on the pulse of what's really happening in the company. They understand what's going on in, you know, operations and supply chain planning and all of the various elements of their manufacturing, all the different pieces of the company kind of come together there. They know what all the plans are, what everyone's trying to accomplish. So, as you're trying to update your strategic plan as the environment dictates you need to, they have the information to facilitate those discussions and be a key team member in there. And then the department, not just the heads of the department, but everyone is really collaborating with all the other departments throughout the company. It's a wonderful thing to see. And again, the survey surfaced that, but we see it in our work and the customers we deal with. You know, in the early days when we did this and would go out and help someone kind of streamline their processes and automate them, find the right technology. We worked with finance, and maybe IT would be in there, or actually, in the earliest days, it was IT in there, and maybe finance would be there. That was really a long time ago, but Finance and IT primarily. But now these discussions, they have plant managers from all over the company. They have HR in there. They have heads of sales in there, I mean, it's really happening. I'm very happy to see all this, because this is what we need for the whole company to pull together, get that strategic alignment and execute on their strategy. And to see it happening and to see the people in finance recognizing and enjoying it. It's just great.

[00:09:10] Melissa Howatson And I agree, so thrilled to see that. And as I reflect on that and into the third finding, which was around the people side of things, we hear a lot about the talent shortage that we're starting to find in finance. And so you had some interesting findings that came through when it comes to the people's side and how people are feeling about opportunities. And maybe you could share a bit more about that.

[00:09:35] Craig Schiff So, the optimism continues there. You know, as we look at finance as a whole, being more critical to the company and playing a more important role, that also trickles down to the people in the department. Everyone in there is being asked to take a broader role, and work with more people throughout the company, and to broaden their knowledge and to step up. And that enables promotion opportunities. They can grow. So, for the people participating in this, it's a personal potential, besides the company's success and the department's success personally, they can grow in here. Now, because as you touched on there, there is a shortage of resources, you know, finance and accounting people. That's unfortunate. And so it's a challenge for companies to fill those positions. And what they tend to do is they focus on the core skill set, and you need to have that basic foundational knowledge of accounting, and to be in many of these positions, you know, CPAs and the like. And so you focus on that. But this is where we saw some challenges that surfaced. And that really relates to these employees have all the right skill sets. And the answer is no, they fall short in a couple of areas. The two greatest areas they fall short in are understanding how this business operates. So this industry and this company, especially as you're hiring younger people recently out of school, they don't have all that depth of experience in your industry and your company. And so that's something they need to grow into, and that's an opportunity to learn for them to grow. And then the other side is on data analysis, because as we've seen, analytics and understanding the data, not just number crunching, collecting the data and the like, but actually analyzing the data and what does this mean, and what action should we take. The data analysis side and using the tools available for data analysis, which are constantly evolving, to use those tools and know how to do that is an opportunity for training. So companies do recognize this. So the employees on one hand are telling us they want this training and companies are saying we need to be doing that training in particular, as we have, you know, this hiring challenge, we need to hire people with the right skills and then train them up on our company and or our industry and the data analysis skills that they need and the right tools to be able to be a fully contributing employee to this department. So all good news, opportunity to learn and grow and advance in the company.

[00:12:03] Melissa Howatson Well, and I'm so glad to hear that because when you think about the things that a business is going to need to lean in even more to the strategy and take that seat at the table to be able to attract talent to this industry, people seeing those opportunities and leaning into that learning mindset is really exciting to see that people are seeing that it's real and those opportunities are there, and that they're feeling supported to be about to go after them. So, I was really grateful to see that. The fourth one was around technology, and what we're seeing in terms of how finance is leaning into or not into technology. What did you find there?

[00:12:46] Craig Schiff They are. They're rapidly adopting, in our case here specifically, planning technology, planning and reporting and consolidation as well. Along with that, they're adopting the technologies. They are happy with it. Of course, they also still use Excel spreadsheets along with it. Now, that's not a negative as long as you use Excel in its proper role as opposed to a standalone system, which it's not. That's where we find problems. A lot of our customers are coming from a collection of, you know, chaotic spreadsheet systems, quote unquote, and they're moving to a real solution. So these companies are embracing planning solutions. And again, that's what we do for a living. So, we certainly see that firsthand, we have the acceptance and adoption of these solutions has increased. When we walk into a company where they're either primarily using before they get a new system, an old legacy system, a collection of spreadsheets or a collection of old legacy systems. And that's fairly common in larger companies, different corners of the company have different technologies to do basically the same thing. So the fact that they're looking at a unifying planning solution company-wide. To go back to what we talked about, the financial planning alongside the operational planning and the consolidation reporting is the right thing to do. And that's kind of, we've been looking for this for a long time. It's happening. The number of companies that don't, you know, have a new planning solution is dwindling. That's really the minority. I mean, maybe that's not great for you as a software vendor. It's almost saturated. That's not exactly true. But there are many companies who are using systems and their satisfaction with them. That's the other side of the coin. Not only do they have these systems, they're happy with them. They are happy. And we have other survey data that indicates, you know, in these uncertain times, those systems have helped them. We've asked those questions. You know, has your system, your performance management system, CPM, as we often call it, has this helped you navigate the choppy waters of the economic environment we're operating in today? And they said, absolutely, absolutely. So embrace these systems. They've purchased them, they've implemented them, and they're loving them. So yeah, everyone's super happy. I'd like to look for trouble in here somewhere, but in general, they're super happy.

[00:14:58] Melissa Howatson Well, great to hear. Now, the next area where we had some findings was around AI, artificial intelligence, and how finance teams are thinking about that. You know, it's been evolving over the last couple of years, especially it's picked up steam. It's been…AI's been around for a while, but it's certainly been a lot more talk the last couple of years. What was our finding this year?

[00:15:22] Craig Schiff So when you talk about trouble, AI has been, to me, a problematic area for a while. And the reason is because you had on one side the technology press and analysts saying this is the greatest thing ever. And then you had, on the other side, finance end users looking at their financial systems and saying, I'm skeptical, I am hesitant, I don't want this. It's gonna take away my job, it's threatening, it's not secure. I mean, so there was absolutely a disconnect, and that's frustrating because the potential of AI is huge, but something was missing. And so what we saw in this survey is the adoption rate has picked up fairly dramatically. We do multiple surveys a year on our own and with other companies, and we've seen, even just from the beginning of last year to the end, the adoption rates and acceptance and plans for implementing AI and financial systems has grown fairly dramatically and fairly quickly. My assessment of the reason for that is that the vendors have gotten the message. They've listened to customers. And what they've done is they've implemented AI and their newer releases in a very focused and purposeful way, addressing particular use cases, not just here's a nice new technology, go figure out what to do with it. The vendors figured that out, and they're providing it in very specific use cases. So data quality, leveraging anomaly detection, predictive forecasting, leveraging machine learning, conversational, interactive insights, leveraging things like generative AI. So, the vendors have figured out how to plug this into their systems to add value and to augment the systems and the capabilities that are already there, which in turn improves productivity. They've made it easier to use. You don't need a data scientist. They focused on security and transparency, and generated trust, which was lacking in the past. So I think, because of the way the technology vendors in this space, the performance management space have now implemented AI is what's helping facilitate this adoption. My concern is AI continues to evolve, and the people that are just beginning to get on board with these proven technologies may step back and look at some of the newer things that are coming and say, oh, I'm not ready yet. Let me wait and see how this turns out. The value is there. They should jump in today. But when you look at, you know, the stories out there talking about DeepSeek, maybe this is gonna make it easier, cheaper, better, or agentic AI, which a lot of people are talking about, you know, AI agents, great potential. They're more autonomous, but which could be good or bad depending on your viewpoint, but it's constantly changing. My recommendation to our customers is always, take a piece today that's available in your product and AI capability that's been proven and tested and used by other companies. And take advantage of and start getting the benefits today, and let those other AI technologies evolve, and when they're accepted and proven and trustworthy, then you can jump in with those as opposed to just waiting until we're done, because we're never gonna be done. You know, it also reminds me in a way of cloud adoption that took an awful long time. Again, the benefits were fairly obvious to technologists early on, took a long time for end-user organizations to adopt cloud technology. And the adoption curve varied by geography, by industry, and we saw a similar path in AI. But I really feel we've reached an inflection point here, and it will be more broadly adopted as we go forward, certainly this year.

[00:18:49] Melissa Howatson Yeah, it's good to hear when you use that term like the inflection point on AI, because that gives room for optimism. What I'm hearing from you here is some great progress. We'll continue watching this space to make sure that it continues, but heading in the right direction, which is great to hear. And the sixth area where we had some findings that came out of the survey had to do with the most mature organizations when it comes to their planning and helping their businesses to move forward. They shared some common traits. Can you share some more information about what we saw there?

[00:19:26] Craig Schiff Sure. So the traits that they tend to share is they have a set of consistent processes, so they've streamlined their processes and they're consistent throughout the company across departments. They collaborate regularly, again, with other departments, so finance is collaborating with all the operational areas. They're involved in strategic planning, company-wide strategic planning. And they take advantage of technology to automate budgeting, forecasting, reporting, close management, consolidation, and so on. They do this more so to a greater degree than other companies. And what's interesting though here, just to be clear on this, is they self-identified as leaders in terms of this maturity. So we took a look at the companies that said where they are developing or leading or whatever they selected from the survey. And then we looked at how they answered the other questions, and we put it together, and that was the profile. So they knew they were leading or thought their perspective was, but they believe these were the leading traits, and they demonstrated those traits. So they think they're a leader, and when we looked at the other question, they had the traits that we also believe constitutes a leader. So, a fairly consistent vision of those people who think they are leading are correct, and those people who recognize they're not quite there yet are also correct. But those are kind of the key elements to, you know, represent the maturity in terms of the processes and systems they're using in finance.

[00:20:56] Melissa Howatson So Craig, when you sit back and you reflect on what came through in the survey results, what was most surprising to you?

[00:21:04] Craig Schiff That there is very little griping in there, very little complaining, you know, other than the environment they operate in, but they said, but you know we've got this covered. I mean, something just to continue on the path of optimism in there. Another question we didn't really highlight here is, we asked them, do you have enough staff in finance to meet the demand put upon your departments? And we know that demand has increased and will continue to increase over the next several years. And yet they said, yes, we have enough staff to meet demand. Now think about it as a CFO. You know, when have you ever asked someone, “Do you need more help? Do you need employees? Do you need more staff?” And they said, “No, I'm good.” That doesn't happen. But these guys are saying, “You know, we're set.” We have the resources we need. I mean, it was just…it so consistent throughout. And you know sometimes, people are just happy and they're gonna say everything's great if they're in a happy mood for some reason. So it could be some of that. Each question, each area, we have the right resources, we like our role, we're strategic, we're collaborating, we have good systems in place. Everything's wonderful. Leave us alone. We are fine. Stop asking questions.

[00:22:13] Melissa Howatson Yeah. I don't hear that very often from teams in general. Like, yes, we've got enough resources, we're good. So that really is impressive to hear that was coming through. Craig, thank you so much for your assistance with the survey alongside with Vena. Always appreciate your ability to pull it together and help us to glean the most important insights out of it. Now I know you've been on the show before, and so you know we have a couple of rapid-fire questions that we do like to ask our guests, so are you ready?

[00:22:50] Craig Schiff Sure. It'd be nice if I knew what the questions were in advance, but sure.

[00:22:54] Melissa Howatson We're going to try and catch you off guard. What is the hallmark of a mature finance organization when it comes to how they operate?

[00:23:02] Craig Schiff That's an easy one. It's to me, we talked about how they view maturity and how we set it up in the survey, but to me, it's a finance department that's open to sharing information, it's transparent. I mean, in the early days when we were doing this, going in and helping them find systems, it was a bunch of finance people sitting in a corner, and they're gonna use the system. We'd ask them, how many users do you expect to have? And they say, two or three, just us. How are you gonna get any value? What do you mean? You're using this for budgeting. It's just you guys. And yeah, in a corner, they would set this up, and then they would tell everyone what their budget is. That's obviously terrible. And they were also reluctant to share information because on one hand, they were afraid it might get into competitors' hands. So, you know, if I share it with an employee who's not an employee tomorrow. But secondly, they didn't even trust their employees to use this information appropriately. Let them know how the business is performing and how they can contribute and help improve that performance. Get buy-in and accountability by letting them participate in the budgeting process and contribute their own budget instead of just basically a top-down, dictated budget. I mean, today a hybrid approach typically, you know, top-down and bottom-up, is what's going. But, you know, in those days, it was just held very close to the vest in finance, and everyone else will tell them what they need to know. That was the old days. Today, we see most companies advance way beyond that. And they're involving everyone in the process, both on the input side, sharing the output, helping them understand their performance. And then you get that ownership and accountability, which itself helps improve performance and employee morale and satisfaction.

[00:24:36] Melissa Howatson Great to see that companies have mostly turned the page on that way of operating. The next question for you is, what is your go-to strategy to stay productive during the workday?

[00:24:48] Craig Schiff So it's not a nice thing, but I have a fairly easy answer, and it's I shut the door. Because, whether working at home with family members or in the office with team members, you know, I used to think an open-door policy was the right approach, and I still do for the most part. But you operate on a constant interruption mode, constantly being interrupted, and it takes a long time to get back. You know, focused on what you were doing. I work on a lot of large projects. That's my typical operational mode these days. So, like analyzing the survey, writing a budgeting and planning buyer's guide, which we just released by the way for 2025. But putting these efforts on this project, I just need to focus. And so for those periods, when I'm working on that, I find shutting the doors is just the easiest answer. And then some next steps potentially is muting my phone. But really need to be focused. I mean, an open door is good. You want to be accessible. You want to be able to help people move along with their challenges. But really, when you have to get something done, nothing better than shutting the door. And they get it, certainly my family members do. When they see that door shut, they know to stay away.

[00:25:58] Melissa Howatson Well, you eventually open it, so I'm sure that helps too, right? We've just scratched the surface today. There's lots more great insight in this survey. If our audience wants to learn more, where should they go to find those results?

[00:26:13] Craig Schiff The Vena Solutions website, which, easily enough, is called venasolutions.com.

[00:26:20] Melissa Howatson Craig, thanks once again for all of your help with the survey and interpreting it, and thanks for coming on the show today to help discuss these results with me.

[00:26:30] Craig Schiff Always a pleasure. Nice seeing you again.

[00:26:33] Melissa Howatson Want to learn more about today's discussion? Check out the resources in our show notes. Don't miss out on future episodes. Subscribe to The CFO Show on your favorite podcast platform. For The CFO Show, I'm Melissa Howatson. See you next time.