Most people have heard the term “agile” being used in a number of contexts in the workplace. From agile business, to agile software development, these days it seems the only way to get anything done is by embracing agility.

Introduced with the Agile Manifesto in 2001, the agile approach to business was initially focused on the software industry, but has since been applied with success to a number of other business practices and disciplines. Its defining characteristic – small, empowered cross-functional teams – is one of the primary reasons that agile accelerates processes and decision making, boosts innovation, and shortens time to market.

Now finance teams have started embracing agile to gain the many benefits this approach offers. Agile finance is a modern approach to financial management that prioritises speed, flexibility, collaboration, and data-driven decision-making, enabling finance teams to adapt quickly to change and support strategic business goals. It’s a shift away from static, backward-looking processes (like traditional annual budgeting) toward continuous planning, real-time insights, and proactive partnering with the business.

Adopting agile

For CFOs who are increasingly tasked with providing strategic insight and plans to fuel future growth, agile finance offers an opportunity for them to sustainably deliver value to the business. Faster, more accurate planning allows them to respond to market shifts in real time. Increased efficiency ensures finance teams have to do less manual work whole offering more strategic value. Most importantly, better alignment with business provides a competitive advantage as a result of faster decisions and more innovation.

Adopting agile business is leading CFOs to adjust their processes and incorporate the right tools in order to solve many of their challenges. Technologies like AI-enabled EPM solutions are allowing them to reduce staff time on low-value, high-volume tasks and establish centres of excellence to enable the analysis that shifting market needs such as inflation and supply chain disruption require.

However, there is a difference between being agile and applying agile. Being agile means agility is infused throughout the finance function to make strategic planning, forecasting, and decision-making not only more collaborative and adaptive, but also driven by real-time data. Being agile is a mindset — a cultural and strategic commitment to adaptability, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Applying agile focuses on the practices that will allow the finance organisation to be agile.

The only way forward

Embracing an agile mindset in finance is not merely about adopting a new set of tools or methodologies. It’s about turning finance teams into a strategic partner who helps achieve and maximise business goals to drive greater efficiencies and overall growth.

With that being said, however, tools like EPM support the evolution to agile finance, enabling leaders to develop their teams’ capabilities while allowing the software to provide the foundation of the shift. Agile teams, for example, no longer focus on annual planning cycles, moving to rolling forecasts instead. EPM can make this transition more painless. Similarly, evolving from siloed budgeting to collaborative planning can only be achieved with and EPM solution that allows for a single source of truth and collaborative data sharing across the business.

Agile finance shifts the focus away from mere data creation and gatekeeping towards higher-value decision-making and partnership with business leaders. Through rolling forecasts and advanced scenario planning to track change in real time and gain insights into the best path forward, agile finance ensures teams can stay ahead of the fast-paced, hyper-competitive, and constantly changing environment of today’s business world.