These days, everyone has an opinion on what we can expect in the coming year. But what information do you need to set your company on the right track in 2021?
BillingPlatform released its annual survey, Trends in Finance 2021 Market Outlook & Strategies. This survey took an in-depth look at how finance teams are adapting to trends, budget challenges and strategies to drive revenue in light of the global pandemic.
The nationwide survey was conducted in October and November and included more than 300 CFOs and senior finance executives representing a range of industries and vertical markets, with a majority generating $100 million or more in revenue per year.
As companies across the U.S. deal with the ongoing pandemic’s impact on the global economy, finance teams recognize its influence on the future.
When asked how they plan to adapt to the new global economic environment, respondents named three top priorities:
• Invest in cloud-based technologies (42%).
• Identify ways to drive higher revenue through new products and services (41%).
• Reduce operating costs or capital investments (36%).
The finance team goals and objectives for 2021 is to focus on technology and digital transformation across the entire lead-to-revenue process in the following ways:
• Transitioning legacy IT infrastructure (30%).
• Legacy enterprise applications (16%).
• The cloud, using AI for predictive analytics (15%).
• Consolidating disparate system data for analysis (15%).
• Automating or updating billing systems (14%).
The check is still in the mail
Only 9% of respondents reported that all of their accounts receivables were paid via digital payments, while about half said that at least 50% were paid digitally.
Barriers to digital payments
When asked what was preventing them from moving to digital payments, respondents listed the following as the top issues:
• The cost of services (42%).
• Fears of cybersecurity attacks and payment fraud (38%).
• Customer reluctance (32%).
• Systems and infrastructure lacking (31%).
• International currency complexities (29%).
“While it is no surprise that the global pandemic has completely disrupted plans for this year, the survey shows its long-term impact on the business strategies for finance teams. Compared to our last survey, both the number of respondents seeing economic uncertainty as a challenge and moving to the cloud have doubled,” Dennis Wall, BillingPlatform CEO said in the press release on the survey.
“Accelerating a broader industry trend, businesses are recognizing the importance of recurring revenue and the need to offer more flexible products and services with promotional, incentive, recurring or consumption-based models to build loyalty and drive revenue.”
