Workday Podcast: How CSA Group Is Enabling Finance Digital Acceleration

Audio also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

The standards industry has historically been known for its traditional processes, complex regulations, and siloed systems. CSA Group—a professional services organization that develops regulatory standards—set out to digitize the organization’s financials and reporting business in order to break free from outdated norms. 

In this episode of the Workday Podcast, Hitesh Laxman, director, financial process improvement at CSA Group, and Lynn Hurley, senior vice president, finance consulting at Collaborative Solutions, a Workday partner, discuss how CSA Group is enabling agility and flexibility to address customer demands in an ever-changing world, as well as what the future of the industry will look like. 

Below are highlights from the conversation, edited for clarity. You can also find other podcast episodes here. 

• “If you want to empower your leaders, not just in finance, but across the entire organization, you have to provide them with the information they need to manage their business. Now that we've implemented Workday, any of our call center managers, most of whom are not accountants, can easily pull up a P&L for their group, their division, and their entity, and easily drill down to see, for example, what transactions have comprised their expenses. In addition to that, Workday provides real-time information based on all of the things that have been processed. You're not waiting for a ‘month-end’ to happen or for that trigger event that then says, ‘Hey, now you can go ahead and look at the information.’ The information itself is always accessible because it's all within the same system.” —Laxman

• “When it comes to digital transformation, some organizations bite off more than they can chew. They think about this transformation journey as a whole package rather than breaking it down into, ‘What can we do to get the most bang for our buck as we proceed?’ It’s important to make sure everyone is aligned on the goals, especially when your organization is working remotely. Looking forward, there will always now be folks who aren't in the office. Companies are going to have to look at that as they’re thinking about transformation and ambitious goals, but be realistic in how they achieve them.” —Hurley

• “It's important to note that there is a post-implementation transition period after you go live with your new software. You're going to have to make sure that all of the roles have been assigned properly, everyone has access to what they need, all of the reports have been accurately produced, and the dashboards have been properly set up. This is something that you have to keep in mind when planning out your road map in your digital transformation journey.” —Laxman