Is it okay to grow now?

After the last year or so, every question is a valid question. “Should we bunker down?” “Should we stick with status quo?” “Should we stretch our legs a little?”

It’s pretty clear that of these three, status quo doesn’t get you very far. No business can do things the old way and expect to succeed in whatever the new normal is. Bunking down isn’t the best bet either. Businesses who used their downtime to upgrade technologies have seen their newfound flexibility navigate unforeseen changes and challenges.

But stretching yourself a little? Where does that get you?

Everywhere. Businesses at the forefront of growth in 2021 are those who took the turmoil of 2020 and turned it into a sort of “reset culture.” They were willing to reconsider their processes and were ready to change them. They were eager to re-evaluate how they get work done and happy to rework their procedures. They were capable of stretching themselves when it was easier to contract – and instead of drawing the line, they crossed it and made a commitment to continuous improvement.

The key is control.

So yes, it’s okay to get out there and get growing again. In fact, as this joint SAP Concur/Deloitte whitepaper shows, many business leaders are looking at 2021 as the year to grow. And they’re doing it by takings control of costs.

These leaders (incidentally, they’re financial leaders) have invested in travel, expense, and invoice-management tools to give themselves an edge: They know what they’ve got to spend, so they can quickly made definitive decisions that drive business growth.

They’re not wondering what’s being spent or where their budgets stand. They know, so they can act now. And they’re committed to knowing more.

· They’re investing in AI and machine learning tools that provide in-depth analytics into spending while pointing out which policies work and which need to be improved.

· They’re setting up simple, pre-approval standards that let them control spend before it happens.

· They’re moving towards a 100% audit policy and getting accurate, automatic assurance that each expense and every invoice is correct.

· They’re going after their fair share of $40 billion in value-added-tax reclaim, and because they have the tech to trim complexities out of the process, they’re getting it.

Efficiency is always more effective.

Financial leaders investing in these changes don’t simply want to get things moving again, they want things to move faster. Efficiency is everything in business – no surprise there – but in our post-pandemic world, no one can afford to let process or procedure or inaccurate information slow them down. No company can afford to have “too much data to use;” they must be able to immediately access exactly the data they need and only the data they need. They must continue to adapt as they learned last year and be able to make sudden -but significant - shifts in direction.

Businesses have to turn quickly to outpace changes in the market; their rapid adjustments are the only way to keep moving forward.

This course for growth – through adaptability, efficiency, cost control, and the tools that make it possible – are outlined in the whitepaper, which highlights why this is the year to get going.

Take a look, because it’s time.