Today’s business landscape is marked by exponential global digitalization, a trend that reached its zenith following the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic collapse of 2020 highlighted the urgent need for businesses and financial systems to adapt to new social realities. The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals underscore the necessity of innovation to support and develop infrastructure, foster employment and economic growth, and promote sustainability. It’s clear that traditional market systems are no longer viable.
Leading financial experts worldwide agree that a sustainable economic system, capable of withstanding present and future challenges, requires substantial technological advancement, inclusivity, and diversity-oriented development plans. To explore the new rules of today’s economic arena, we spoke with Asad Ullah, an internationally acclaimed finance expert who built his career on driving multi-million dollar digital transformation projects aimed at sustainable development and enhancement of financial systems and forecasting algorithms.
New-Generation Approach to Financial Management
Asad Ullah has earned global recognition for pioneering the integration of SAP Business Planning & Consolidation (BPC) initiatives. This advanced technology, currently mastered by only a few finance specialists, SAP BPC started raising exponential interest within financial sector after the series of groundbreaking discoveries. Asad’s project not only mitigated the risks of errors and omissions in financial consolidation processes but also introduced next-generation systems that go beyond generating standard financial reports including forecasts. These systems enable advanced scenario planning that supports informed business decision-making.
Asad shared his expertise in the successful implementation of Qlik Dashboards, a new-generation software that provides interactive analysis at the click of a button by integrating financial data with operational KPIs. “Qlik Dashboards offer graphical insights to analyze trends and growth patterns, allowing users to compare past performance with future forecasts under various scenarios”, explains Asad. “This tool has revolutionized the field of financial analytics, helping us to multiply the speed and efficiency of our operations”.
Demonstrating his ongoing commitment to delivering accurate and up-to-date financial information, Asad achieved another milestone by implementing the “ABC Costing System” at the Middle East’s leading Food manufacturing company. This innovation significantly improved the accuracy and transparency of cost allocation. Unlike traditional costing methods that often oversimplify cost distribution, the ABC system assigns costs based on actual activities and resource consumption, leading to more precise product costing. This advancement has enabled better pricing decisions, enhanced profitability analysis, and improved strategic planning across the organization.
New Demands of Digitalized Economic Reality
“The best way to predict the future is to create it,” quotes Asad, referencing Peter Drucker, often described as the inventor of modern management. Asad strongly believes in the power of technological advancement to transform contemporary business and financial systems, leading to sustainable economic development, growth, and unprecedented future opportunities. We asked him to comment on the pressing need for financial institutions to transition from traditional accounting tools to new-generation technologies and AI-based algorithms. This shift, while daunting to some “old school” professionals, is essential for adapting to the demands of the digitalized reality.
“Living in a world of exponential technological improvement, we must adapt financial control and planning procedures to meet new digital demands. Failure to do so will lead to market share loss and undermine efforts to foster sustainability,” Asad asserts. He compares this shift to the transition from traditional telephones to smartphones, emphasizing pragmatism, convenience, and the necessity to meet contemporary expectations.
Asad’s first-hand experience in business systems digitalization and migration earned him industry-wide acclaim, particularly after the success of SAP Hana and SAP BPC systems implementation at a wide range of major international projects. “The extensive volume of accounting data required for financial planning, forecasts, and modeling is complex. Processing this information without digital technologies is time-consuming,” Asad explains. “Even the best team of accounting experts can’t compete with AI algorithms. Software like SAP speeds up processes, delivering top-quality planning, compliance, budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation solutions in minutes instead of days.”
Diversity as the Key to Success
Asad’s journey in finance industry, from overseeing accounting management to driving financial planning and analysis, and ultimately becoming the corporation’s financial controller responsible for leading accounting teams, departments, and multi-million projects, underscores his comprehensive expertise. He believes that the diversity and comprehensiveness of his experiences in different aspects of financial management are key to his success.
Similarly, the wide spectrum of functions offered by modern technologies makes digital transformation crucial for businesses to operate, stay competitive, and foster innovation, exponential growth, and sustainability. “Diversity of opportunities provided by new-generation technologies makes digital transformation the cornerstone of business sustainability” states Asad. “Success is achieved when all elements come together, considering different angles and specificities.”
Fostering Business Sustainability
Asad Ullah’s insights highlight the critical role of digital transformation in achieving business sustainability. “The finances are not all about spreadsheets and dry numbers”, he shares. “There is a lot more creative, strategic, and even detective-like tasks involved that require the application of the latest technologies. We often build complex models predicting future financial performance based on different scenarios foreseen after gathering clues from market trends, historical data, and various economic indicators. Here is where we need the new-generation software developments like visualization tools, digital analytics, and online databases comparing the data from thousands of sources within seconds. We need technology to foster efficiency, precision, and sustainability of financial plans, businesses, and economic environment”.