#260 How To Get AI ROI In 30 Days: The Playbook Finance Leaders Miss, Dan Fletcher, CFO, Planful
Understanding how to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for rapid returns has become essential for today’s finance leaders. While many organizations invest in AI, few manage to achieve tangible value quickly. This episode tackles a critical strategic challenge: how CFOs and finance teams can deliver measurable ROI from AI initiatives within just 30 days—a key success factor for staying competitive, agile, and efficient in a fast-changing market.
Kevin Appleby speaks with Dan Fletcher, CFO of Planful, to uncover the often-overlooked strategies that accelerate AI’s impact in finance. Their conversation explores the evolving landscape of finance technology, upcoming consolidation trends in the CFO tech stack, and practical steps for achieving quick AI wins. Dan also shares insights on how early, effective adoption of AI empowers finance leaders to move their teams from manual processes to strategic, insight-driven advisory roles—positioning finance as a true business partner for the future.
Key topics covered:
- Mindset change is the hardest aspect of finance digital transformation
- Accurate, clean data is critical for successful AI adoption and savings
- AI enables finance teams to spend less time crunching numbers, more time adding value
- Savings are real when AI is applied to transactional and repetitive processes
- AI leads to more frequent, adaptive forecasting and better business partnering
- Boardroom strategy discussions increasingly focus on AI-driven transformation
Links
Timestamps
- 18:47 Future trends and generative AI’s impact on finance transformation
- 26:46 Real-world adoption stories, efficiency gains, and lessons for fast implementation
- 29:21 Step-by-step advice for CFOs on launching high-impact AI projects
- 34:51 Preparing finance teams for new job roles and skills in an AI-driven environment
- 38:26 Forecasting the biggest finance leadership challenges on the horizon
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