C suite solutions. Operations and finance
AI for Operations and Finance
Money is a relay too. It leaks every time it changes hands.
Four offices run the business in your company. A plan becomes a contract, a contract becomes an order, an order becomes stock, stock becomes an invoice and the invoice becomes a number in the ledger. Each office sees its own leg. We look at the whole relay, find where the money slips between offices, and put agents exactly there.
The short answer
It takes on the work that moves money through the company. Agents check every purchase against contracts, match invoices to orders and receipts, flag supplier delays early, replan on live signals and reconcile accounts continuously.
The real gain shows up between teams. When procurement, operations, supply chain and finance work from the same live data, savings stop leaking, cash comes in sooner and the close stops being a monthly scramble. Leadership gets one view of cost, cash and service instead of four separate reports.
The tension
Everyone in this group wants the business to run lean and reliably. But each office is measured on a different number, and those numbers often pull against each other.
CFO Office
Cash, margin and the close
Are the numbers right, on time and turning into cash?
Procurement Office
Savings and compliance
Are we buying at the price we negotiated?
COO Office
Cost to serve and uptime
Does the operation run without costly exceptions?
Supply Chain Office
Service level and inventory
Is the right stock in the right place?
Procurement wins on price and supply chain loses on resilience. Operations holds safety stock and finance loses working capital. Each number can look healthy while money still leaks between them.
The money relay
This is how money really moves through a company. Watch the handoffs. That’s where savings evaporate, cash gets stuck and the numbers drift from reality.
Leg 1
Plan
CFO and Supply Chain Offices
Leg 2
Source
Procurement Office
Leg 3
Buy
Procurement and COO Offices
Leg 4
Make and move
COO and Supply Chain Offices
Leg 5
Pay
CFO Office
Leg 6
Report
CFO Office
Handoff 1
Plans that never reach the buyer
The demand plan changes. Sourcing still buys to last month’s numbers.
Agent. Pushes plan changes into sourcing and checks supplier capacity against them.
Handoff 2
Contracts nobody uses
The deal is signed. Orders still go to other suppliers at other prices.
Agent. Checks every request against contracts and routes it before a PO is raised.
Handoff 3
Delays found at the dock
The supplier knew it was late. Operations finds out when the truck doesn’t arrive.
Agent. Reads confirmations, emails and shipping data and flags delays days earlier.
Handoff 4
Invoices that don’t match
What arrived, what was ordered and what was billed tell three stories.
Agent. Matches invoice, order, receipt and contract, and resolves the exceptions.
Handoff 5
A close that waits on everyone
Finance chases reconciliations and accruals from every team.
Agent. Reconciles continuously so the close takes days, not weeks.
The loop nobody closes. Actuals that never reach the plan.
Real costs, supplier performance and variances rarely flow back into the next budget, forecast or sourcing strategy. So next year’s plan repeats this year’s mistakes. Agent. Variance agents explain every gap in plain language and feed it into the forecast and the sourcing plan.
Inside each office
Each office has its own canvas. Here’s the short version of each, with the three value leaks we’d look at first. The full canvas covers what the office runs and governs, its processes and its control tower.
Chief Financial Officer
CFO Office
Protect cash, report accurately and on time, and fund the strategy.
Office page live
Explore the CFO Office →
Where value leaks
Slow close
Ledgers, bank lines and intercompany reconciled continuously
Cash stuck in receivables
Collections agents prioritise, chase and resolve disputes
Forecasts nobody trusts
Driver based forecasts with every variance explained
Measured on
Days to close, forecast accuracy, working capital and cost of finance.
Control tower
Days to close
Cash conversion cycle
Forecast accuracy
Control exceptions
Chief Procurement Officer
Procurement Office
Buy at the right cost, quality and risk, and keep every supplier honest.
Office page live
Explore the Procurement Office →
Where value leaks
Off contract spend
Every request checked against contracts before a PO
Invoice drift
Every invoice line matched to the contract terms
Auto renewals and shelfware
Negotiation briefs built 120 days before each renewal
Measured on
Savings banked, spend under management, contract compliance and supplier risk.
Control tower
Spend under management
Savings pipeline
Renewal calendar
Supplier risk
Chief Operating Officer
COO Office
Run the business day to day and keep cost, quality and service in balance.
Office page live
Explore the COO Office →
Where value leaks
Exceptions handled by hand
Agents triage, resolve or route each case with full context
Knowledge trapped in documents
Documents read and linked to operational data
Process variance between sites
How work really flows, mapped and compared to the standard
Measured on
Operating margin, cost to serve, on time in full and SLA attainment.
Control tower
Cost to serve
OTIF
Backlog and ageing
Touchless rate
Chief Supply Chain Officer
Supply Chain Office
Plan, source, make and move, with the right stock in the right place.
Office page live
Explore the Supply Chain Office →
Where value leaks
Plans out of step with demand
Live replanning with trade offs set out for the planner
Supplier risk spotted late
Risk sensing across suppliers, routes and regions
Stock in the wrong place
Inventory rebalanced across sites before it runs short
Measured on
Service level, forecast accuracy, inventory days and logistics cost.
Control tower
OTIF
Inventory days
Forecast accuracy
Supplier risk
Agents that work across offices
The biggest wins in this group come from agents that serve several offices at once. They share the same data and follow the money across the handoffs.
Procurement
CFO
Touchless source to pay
Every request, order, receipt and invoice matched to the contract, with only true exceptions reaching a person.
Procurement
Supply Chain
COO
One supplier risk layer
Financial health, delivery performance, news and contract terms for every critical supplier, in one view.
CFO
Supply Chain
Plan and actuals in one loop
Demand, supply and financial plans that update together and learn from every variance.
All four
An operations and finance control tower
One set of numbers for the whole relay, with alerts at the handoffs before they hit the month end.
All of this runs on one enterprise AI platform, Cortex, which plugs into your ERP, procurement, planning, warehouse and banking systems. Every office builds on the same foundation and the same controls.
What leadership would open on Monday
Illustrative
Operations and finance control tower
Sample data to show the view. Not client results.
Days to close
6
▼ from 11
CFO Office
Cash cycle
48 days
▼ 7 days
CFO Office
Spend on contract
72%
▲ 9 pts
Procurement Office
Touchless invoices
64%
▲ 22 pts
Procurement and CFO
OTIF
93.4%
▼ 1.2 pts
COO and Supply Chain
Inventory days
61
▲ 4 days
Supply Chain Office
Where this year’s savings went
Negotiated
€6.5m
In contracts
€5.6m
Used in orders
€4.8m
Seen in invoices
€4.3m
Banked in P&L
€4.1m
Handoff alerts this week
Q3 demand plan up 12% for two product lines, sourcing not updated
Handoff 1. Plan to source
€380k of orders placed off contract in packaging
Handoff 2. Source to buy
Three critical suppliers confirming late against the plan
Handoff 3. Buy to make and move
214 invoices billed above the agreed contract price
Handoff 4. Make and move to pay
Illustrative example. Figures are invented to show how the view works. In discovery we build it on your own data and KPIs.
Your industry changes the relay
The relay is the same everywhere. Where the money slips is not. Here’s where the money really goes in the industries we work in, and the handoff we’d look at first.
CPG
Raw materials, packaging and trade spend
Trade deductions to cash
Deduction and claims agents that resolve disputes with evidence
FMCG
Ingredients, co packers and logistics
Demand plan to supplier orders
Live replanning linked to supplier capacity
Retail
Stock, stores and supplier terms
Supplier terms to invoice
Rebate and invoice audit agents
D2C
Inventory, fulfilment and returns
Stock to cash
Inventory rebalancing and returns reconciliation
Automotive
Parts, suppliers and warranty
Supplier delay to production line
Supplier risk sensing and warranty claims agents
Healthcare
Medical supplies, staff and claims
Purchase to payment
Contract compliance and claims processing agents
Energy
Capital projects, contractors and assets
Contractor invoice to contract
Contractor invoice and milestone audit agents
Manufacturing
Materials, plants and maintenance
Plan to plant to supplier
Exception handling and live replanning agents
Logistics
Fuel, carriers and equipment
Carrier invoice to shipment
Freight audit and accrual agents
BFSI
Third parties, claims and operations
Claim to settlement
Document reading and claims processing agents
B2B technology
Cloud, software licences and people
Renewal to usage
Licence usage and renewal brief agents
Proof
COO Office
Less time to process insurance claims by reading unstructured documents alongside ERP data
Automotive insurer, GCC region
COO and CFO Office
Increase in warranty conversions
Automotive insurer, GCC region
Your intervention map
Bring your finance, procurement and operations leaders and one number that won’t move. We bring the canvases. In one session we map your relay and mark where agents would pay back first.
01
Your office canvases
The offices in your money relay, mapped to how your teams really work.
02
Your value chain
Your relay placed on your industry and company, with the ERP and systems behind each leg.
03
Your intervention points
Each handoff leak with an agent design, its controls and the KPI it moves. Delivered as a mind map, an architecture view or an interactive dashboard.
AI for operations and finance, answered
What can AI do for operations and finance?
Agentic AI takes on the work that moves money through the company. Agents check every purchase against contracts, match invoices to orders and receipts, flag supplier delays early, replan on live signals, reconcile accounts continuously and explain every variance. Leaders get one live view of cost, cash and service instead of four separate reports.
What can AI do for finance and procurement teams?
For finance, agents speed up the close, chase receivables, catch payables errors and build forecasts people trust. For procurement, they keep spend on contract, audit invoices against agreed terms, track supplier performance and prepare negotiation briefs before every renewal.
Why do procurement savings not show up in the P&L?
Because savings leak at every handoff after the contract is signed. Buyers order off contract, suppliers invoice above agreed prices, credits go unclaimed and nobody traces the saving into the budget. Agents that follow the money from contract to invoice to ledger close those gaps.
How do you measure ROI on AI in operations and finance?
We tie each intervention to a number the board already tracks. Days to close, cash conversion cycle, savings banked, cost to serve, on time in full or inventory days. A baseline is set before the pilot, so the result is clear either way.
Where should operations and finance leaders start?
Start where the money changes hands and the data already exists. For many companies that is invoice matching, contract compliance or the close. One pilot on your own data shows value within weeks, and most of it can be measured straight from the ledger.
Does this work with our ERP?
Yes. Agents work through the systems your teams already use, such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Coupa, SAP Ariba, Kinaxis, Blue Yonder and your banking and document platforms. Nothing needs replacing to start.
Other office groups
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Strategy and growth
CEO, CMO, CRO, CX, Product, Innovation and Transformation Offices.
Power the business
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CIO, CTO, Chief AI, Data, Digital and CISO Offices.
Protect the business
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HR, Legal, Compliance, Risk and Sustainability Offices.
