With recessionary fears on the rise, 57% of Singapore C-suite executives and finance and accounting (F&A) professionals surveyed for BlackLine’s recent survey are concerned that prospects or customers will have less income to spend, which could impact sales or revenue.
About half of them (51%) are also worried that their organisation will face higher costs, while 48% are concerned that they will need to look for new ways to optimise working capital without borrowing funds.
Consequently, 61% of the Singapore respondents agree that understanding cash flow in real time will be more important for their company in the face of economic uncertainty. However, only 4% are completely confident in the visibility they currently have over cash flow.
This suggests that the majority of Singapore organisations could be at a serious disadvantage when it comes to making strategic decisions. Of those that believe visibility could be improved, 56% are worried their company is making decisions based on inaccurate or out-of-date information and 50% say the lack of visibility over cash flow makes them less confident that their organisation can remain competitive over the next 12 months.
“Economic instability and volatility have increased over the past few months, adding more uncertainty to an already challenging and unpredictable global business environment. Once again, F&A is caught in the eye of the storm, with CFOs and those who report to them feeling the pressure,” says BlackLine CEO Marc Huffman.
He adds: “There is widespread acknowledgement that better visibility over financial data, processes and working capital is needed if organisations want to weather the storm. Company leaders across the world will need to carefully consider how their organisation can respond and remain competitive, agile and resilient in the coming months.”
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The BlackLine study also identified the current biggest pain points for F&A professionals in Singapore. This includes identifying manual/human errors during the month-end close process (37%), overdue and unsettled intercompany balances (37%), and the lack of automated controls for the volume of data (36%).
Singapore respondents also predict that the top challenges they will face in the coming year are reduced budget for their department, increasing regulations and scrutiny, as well as the ability to provide accurate data quickly enough to help the organisation respond to market changes.
The good news is that some organisations are already looking to optimise working capital and processes. They intend to invest more in digital transformation initiatives (51%) and implement or scale automation solutions to help optimise and increase working capital within the next year (49%).
“There is no doubt that those who are using robust and comprehensive data to make rapid, intelligent decisions will be in a stronger position to adapt. In this environment, it’s likely that greater emphasis than ever will be placed on the strategic insights which F&A can offer to the business,” says Huffman.
