{{item.videoDuration}}
{{item.title}}
{{item.text}}
{{item.videoDuration}}
{{item.text}}
As a controller, you keep the business steady when everything around it shifts. Yet our May 2025 Pulse Survey shows many leaders still hesitate to act—caught between too much data and not enough clarity. That’s where you come in. Your role is evolving from reporting the past to helping shape what comes next.
The demands are growing—more oversight, tighter budgets, new risks—but so is your impact. Controllers who see beyond compliance are stepping into a strategic space, driving agility, growth and innovation.
Here are four actions to take now.
Treat regulatory change as a catalyst
Regulatory flux is challenging. It can slow your team down—or spark progress. The shift ahead is an opportunity to build stronger data, controls and decision support. Lean into readiness as a value story. Build it once and use the same governed data and processes to power both management insights and external disclosures.
Approach finance modernization in waves
Finance transformation is now a continuous journey, but your strategy for modernization can make a significant difference. Major “big T” programs—like ERP implementations—deliver scale. But real impact comes when they’re paired with continuous “little T” changes that keep teams improving every day.
Involve your people before, during and after big programs. Encourage them to rethink workflows and use citizen-led automation to solve everyday challenges. Phased rollouts and process redesign reduce risk, build momentum and deliver early wins. Breaking transformation into waves keeps progress steady and visible. In some cases, it makes sense to tackle the ERP before downstream processes; in others, downstream processes should be optimized first.
Technology cycles—especially in AI—are accelerating. Build governance and operating rhythms that can absorb quarterly feature updates from vendors without disruption. Treat adaptability as part of your control environment.
Realize ROI on AI with small, repeatable use cases
Every finance transformation looks different in scope and ambition. But one question is universal: How do you maximize AI’s return on investment while maintaining control integrity?
For controllers, the answer may come with agentic AI improving data visualization and manipulation. You’ll still need your ERP to record and capture transactions and processes in a controlled way for external reporting. ERP vendors are embedding more AI with every update—offering new ways to speed close cycles, improve matching in accounts payable and receivable, and detect anomalies before they become issues.
Whatever the case, Responsible AI is non-negotiable. Work with IT to define when and how AI is used, keep humans in the loop, document decisions and monitor outcomes.
Invest in staff-led innovation
Talent challenges are easing for some controllers and intensifying for others. Either way, the goal remains the same: Attract the best people—and keep them engaged. Innovation can help make that happen. Empower your teams to lead it. Encourage them to experiment with AI and automation to solve everyday problems, within clear guardrails that protect the enterprise. Model the use of tools that eliminate routine tasks and free up time for more fulfilling, higher value work. When innovation starts with your people, transformation lasts.
The path ahead
Controllers are redefining their role—using compliance, modernization and AI to drive speed, trust and growth. Turn regulation into progress. Modernize step by step. Show AI’s value through quick, responsible wins. And empower your people to innovate from within. That’s how finance becomes not just ready for change, but ready to lead it.
The Controller Agenda Webcast: Driving growth and innovation in 2026
View a replay of our webcast
Finance and Accounting Services
Enhance your finance infrastructure to deliver insight, transparency and sustained outcomes
{{filterContent.facetedTitle}}
{{contentList.loadingText}}
{{contentList.loadingText}}
Follow us
