2025-03-10

Why Finance Transformations Fail – And How to Set Yourself Up for Success

Finance transformation initiatives are critical for driving efficiency and strategic value, yet research from Gartner indicates that up to 70% of these projects fail to meet their objectives. Why? In many cases, failure is not due to the technology itself but rather the lack of proper planning, strategic alignment, and change management.

Key Factors Leading to Failure:

Lack of a Clear Vision – A well-defined future state is essential to guide decision-making and ensure alignment with business goals.

Insufficient Management Buy-In – Leadership support is crucial for securing resources, driving engagement, and ensuring long-term success.

Misalignment with Business and IT Strategies – A failure to assess existing applications and technology roadmaps often results in integration challenges and inefficiencies.

Unclear Project Requirements – Without clearly defined objectives, organizations risk implementing solutions that fail to deliver the expected value.

Neglecting Change Management – Despite being a critical success factor, change management is often underfunded or overlooked, leading to poor adoption and project resistance.

Delayed Engagement with Experts – Many organizations engage external consultants too late—often only at the technology implementation phase. By this point, key strategic decisions have already been made, limiting the value that expert insights can provide.

A Real-World Example: The Cost of Overconfidence

A European multinational sought to automate its month-end close process, investing in software licenses for Account Reconciliations, Transaction Matching, and Journal Entries. However, rather than leveraging external expertise, an overconfident internal project manager insisted on leading the implementation alone.

With no prior experience in deploying the solution, the company faced significant delays, lost three years, and continued paying license fees without realizing the intended benefits. Years later, the same project manager admitted in a webinar how painful the process had been. Had expert guidance been sought early on, much of this frustration—and financial loss—could have been avoided.

How to Ensure a Successful Finance Transformation

Engage Experts Early – Involving specialists at the outset helps define strategy, align requirements, and avoid costly missteps.

Invest in Change Management – A structured approach to user adoption ensures that transformation efforts achieve their full potential.

Plan for Success from Day One – A well-thought-out roadmap, aligned with business objectives, significantly increases the likelihood of delivering a strong ROI.

At Q Close Solutions, we partner with organizations to navigate the complexities of finance transformation, ensuring a strategic, efficient, and value-driven approach. Set your transformation up for success—reach out to us today.