Unum Finance Chief Stresses Importance of Advocating for Digital Transformation

Main Fiscal Officer

Steve Zabel

talks about how the Chattanooga, Tenn.-primarily based firm received rid of spreadsheets, what he desires task candidates to provide and why finance chiefs enjoy an vital job in endorsing automation initiatives. This is the fifth aspect of a series that focuses on how CFOs and other executives digitize their finance functions. Edited excerpts adhere to.

WSJ: What are the important methods you took as a enterprise to modernize your finance functionality?

Mr. Zabel: The initially step we took was around some of our actuarial cash move styles. We benefit from those to do pricing and forecasting and seriously all the things close to [financial performance]. We started off that back in 2013 and we’ve now cycled by way of all of our products and solutions and received [them] on a steady platform. Then, in 2017, we executed two things which were truly helpful. We introduced in a new typical ledger and we set in a [configurable reporting technology]. We do all of our financial reporting off of that.

What that authorized us to do is at the company amount get rid of all the consolidation, all the spreadsheets. Step two has been to now glance at the accounting processes that we have and start to use extra distinct automation technological know-how.

WSJ: What are your essential targets?

Mr. Zabel: There’s a number of things, [including] the high quality of the work that our people today are doing. It is them [having to] invest significantly less time compiling data for the purpose of developing journal entries and also compiling information just to do simple reporting. So shifting them from that kind of perform to much more analysis and functioning with our products lines. It is a quite aggressive environment for talent. Whichever we can do to make it a a lot more enjoyable working experience for staff is likely to assist us in the extensive run.

WSJ: Is there an estimate how much time your staff members save with these new systems?

Mr. Zabel: I have a great deal of functional locations beneath me and some of them are a lot more targeted on the true economical reporting and journal entries than some of the other folks. On regular, those people spots most likely invested 70% to 80% of their time just finding the transactions completed and then finding the information and facts back again out of the ledger to be able to evaluate [them]. We have now moved that far more in the direction of 50/50. What we’d like to do is completely flip that [to] in which they only expend perhaps 20% of their time in fact processing transactions.

WSJ: How are you helping them do that?

Mr. Zabel: How we’re approaching it is we have introduced in these instruments and we have started to show [our employees] what the instruments are, but also give them circumstance research of how they’ve been utilized.

WSJ: What’s remaining to be performed in advance of you strike the 20% target?

Mr. Zabel: There is a couple of places that we however need to have to do the job on. A single is knowledge. Any time you begin a electronic transformation, it all starts with the information you have. Some of our information is in actually fantastic form. [For] some of it, we still have some get the job done to do. So I think there’s some foundational spots where the facts demands to be in a improved type, but then it is just generating the bandwidth for our groups to educate on their own on the resources and make the ability for them to be equipped to utilize them.

WSJ: What is your head count in finance, and do you expect it to shrink as you automate even more?

Mr. Zabel: We have just in excess of 500 individuals suitable now in the finance group, out of a whole personnel foundation of about 10,000. What we’re actually seeking to do with driving efficiencies is not so considerably choose head rely out, it is more about redeploying those resources to fixing much more business challenges for our business enterprise partners. I have no designs to reduce head depend in just the organization. I would fairly expend those people means and redeploy them to enable the corporation increase in distinct strategies.

WSJ: What are you searching for when you evaluate probable candidates?

Mr. Zabel: It is quite vital that we have folks that have a great technical basis. We have a great deal of formally qualified accountants and actuaries inside the firm. We also have people that have a real details science track record. Likely ahead, what we’ll will need extra of are men and women that can translate organization procedures into [automation opportunities]. [For] a large amount of the equipment that are offered nowadays you never definitely have to be that tech enabled in your formal history. They are very configurable.

WSJ: How would you describe your part as CFO in this?

Mr. Zabel: You unquestionably have to be an advocate for it. Using the opportunity every time you can to highlight and admit when we have all those “ring the bell” moments where by men and women have applied engineering to boost their business enterprise procedures is really critical. I assume the other matter is just being plugged into what we’re carrying out with our electronic method much more broadly. I’m tied at the hip with the individual that operates our [information technology] division and also our digital transform agenda.

Compose to Nina Trentmann at [email protected]