Author: Christian Martinez & Nicolas Boucher, February 2024
This week we will show you how to assess your finance team maturity in terms of artificial intelligence (AI).
Table of Contents
Why doing an AI Maturity Assessment?
Your AI maturity for your finance teams is the extent to which your teams are able to effectively integrate and utilize AI in their financial processes – from budgeting and planning to forecasting and financial reporting.
It involves the progression through various stages of AI adoption, where the initial steps may include basic automation and data management, and the most advanced stages involve strategic use of AI for predictive analytics, decision-making, and optimization.
This is a phased progression rather than an overnight leap.
The Roadmap to AI Maturity
Our model consists of seven critical sections, each designed to evaluate and guide our progression from foundational practices to visionary leadership in AI application:
Processes and Functions: You start by integrating AI into your daily routines, ensuring that our planning models and decision-making processes are data-driven and AI-informed.
Technology and Systems: It’s really important to have a robust data and systems infrastructure that can support AI technologies. One ERP or system is ideal instead of multiple systems across the business units or functions.
People and Skills: This is one of the most important ones. Your team must not just be aware of the AI tools out there and learn how to use them but also be engaged in this AI transformation.
Data Quality: High-quality data is what feeds AI models. It’s like a financial forecast – garbage in, garbage out. You need to implement data management practices to ensure the integrity and utility of your data.
Business Strategic Alignment: AI must align with your business strategy, reinforcing our competitive advantage and strategic planning.
Stakeholder Engagement: Communication with stakeholders about the benefits and capabilities of AI is vital, as is their ongoing support and involvement
Change Management: Last but not least, managing the change that AI brings about is as important as the technology itself.
Navigating Through the Levels
Your journey to improve your AI maturity is composed into five incremental levels:
Level 1: Initial Awareness: Teams begin by understanding AI’s potential and starting to embed it in simple processes.
Level 2: Developing Competence: At this stage, finance teams actively incorporate AI tools in specific areas and start to see their benefits.
Level 3: Strategic Integration: AI becomes integral to your strategic operations, with clear governance and dedicated roles.
Level 4: Advanced Application: Here, AI is driving significant improvements in forecasting, analytics, and decision-making.
Level 5: Visionary Leadership: Finance teams aim to fully optimize and automate all of their processes, leading the industry in AI maturity.
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How to assess your AI Maturity?
To effectively assess your AI Maturity, we’ve developed a comprehensive questionnaire comprising 20 key questions.
These questions are meticulously designed to cover various dimensions of AI integration and application within your organization.
Each question is accompanied by a range of possible answers, corresponding to five distinct levels of AI maturity: Level 1 (Initial Awareness), Level 2 (Developing Competence), Level 3 (Strategic Integration), Level 4 (Advanced Application), and Level 5 (Visionary Leadership).
This multi-tiered approach allows for a nuanced assessment, providing insights into both your current standing and potential areas for growth in AI maturity.
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