The Importance of a Unified Data Platform in Modern Finance
by Martin Lepka
The New Role of Finance
Historically, finance teams largely operated in the background, focusing on record-keeping, compliance, and ensuring that financial operations ran smoothly. Their primary responsibilities revolved around managing costs, balancing the books, and maintaining operational efficiency. In recent years, that has changed. Today’s finance teams—whether in financial planning and analysis (FP&A), controlling, or broader financial management—are no longer passive observers; they are active drivers of business growth.
Armed with accurate, data-driven insights, finance professionals now act as strategic partners to upper management, supporting informed decision-making, setting achievable goals, and accurately tracking progress in real time. This expanded role means that finance teams are increasingly relied upon for high-level informed decision-making, forecasting, and advising on resource allocation that can directly influence business outcomes.
This, in turn, means that the demand for efficiency is at an all-time high. It’s no longer enough to present static financial reports to stakeholders at quarterly meetings. The information finance teams work with and present to other stakeholders must be precise and up-to-date. In reality, however, many departments are constrained by outdated, rigid legacy systems and manual processes, which make it impossible to respond to changing business needs quickly enough.
The crux of the issue lies in data fragmentation. Financial data is often scattered across various systems—enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), spreadsheets, and siloed databases. These disparate data sources don’t always align, as they are updated at different times and often managed by different teams. The inefficiency this creates makes it difficult for finance teams to provide the level of insight needed to guide business decisions.
Scaling such an operation is also a challenge. It’s not built for growth. In fact, it’s not built for any unified goal at all; rather, it’s usually a patchwork solution, a mix of disparate methods that worked (or still work!) for specific isolated use cases.
Today, finance teams need complete, real-time data to make data-driven decisions. This is where the unified data platform comes into play.
Key Attributes of a Modern Data Platform in Finance
The main reason why legacy systems no longer cut it is that they are inherently rigid. A unified data platform, by contrast, is designed with agility at its core. Agility is essential for tackling current challenges, and it’s just as crucial for preparing for future needs. Unlike legacy stacks, which quickly become outdated, a unified data platform is adaptable and flexible, enabling finance teams to scale their operations and adjust to new business realities.
While individual components of legacy systems may have been sufficient when first implemented, they lack the ability to evolve alongside the fast pace of change in modern business environments. When business priorities shift, these systems often fail to keep up, leading to inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
A unified data platform, however, is designed not only to address today’s challenges but also to be future-proof. It integrates tools and processes that can evolve alongside the organization’s needs. For instance, as regulatory landscapes change or as the business scales, a unified data platform provides the flexibility to add or modify data sources and adjust workflows with minimal disruption.
With flexibility comes data transparency. There is no point in building another siloed system. Finance teams need accurate, actionable insights, so a good data platform must provide a unified source of truth that finance professionals can rely on for their reporting. This allows finance professionals to access accurate, actionable insights without the need to manually reconcile disparate sources.
Unified data management goes beyond simply making data available; not everyone who needs data is a data expert. Low-code or no-code solutions allow finance specialists to perform forecasting and predictive analytics, or add value to the end customer without needing to pick up new technical skills (or depend heavily on their colleagues in IT).
Thus, the data is democratized and accessible across multiple teams pursuing different goals and objectives. Breaking down data silos in this way unlocks unprecedented efficiency.
Having precise control over who has access to the data also brings another important benefit—security. As the amount of data continues to grow exponentially, and as regulations become stricter, the risk of data breaches or compliance failures increases. A unified data platform can help finance teams establish and maintain strict data governance standards, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive information. Moreover, should a breach occur, the increased visibility provided by a unified platform allows teams to respond quickly, minimizing potential damage.
Finally, one of the most compelling reasons to implement a new data stack is automation—the most pressing issue finance departments typically try to resolve with unified data management. As Vendula Chiznakova, CFO of Home Credit International, noted in a conversation with Keboola CEO Pavel Dolezal: “We knew how many people were data crunching. ... I don’t mean the analytics and the value-adding activities, but just working with spreadsheets, linking, and providing the reports.”
By freeing up time previously spent on the workload of repetitive tasks, finance teams can redirect their focus to strategic initiatives—whether that’s developing new products, conducting advanced analytics, or finding innovative ways to improve the customer experience.
Automating workflows to increase productivity and operational efficiency is a low-hanging fruit; it’s only the starting point for more profound organizational changes that will be felt across the entire company.
Modern Unified Platform Architecture
While the specific data stack is different for every financial department and will vary depending on the company’s size, number of business units, and use cases, the core principles remain consistent. Below is an example of what a modern cloud-based data platform might look like for a finance department.
First, data ingestion is fully automated. Data is automatically loaded from various data sources, such as enterprise systems, CRM, spreadsheets, and external data feeds. Once loaded, the data undergoes transformation according to predefined rules; this might involve cleaning the data, merging datasets, and ensuring consistency across all sources. The data is made available through a variety of outputs—dashboards, visualizations, data apps, and reports—that provide real-time insights into key metrics.
The data is then primed to aid decision-makers, improve analytical capabilities, or be used with artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions. Management has a holistic view of key metrics, while team members involved in forecasting and reporting can do their jobs faster and with fewer errors. New data sources or systems can be integrated easily when the need arises.
With proper data governance practices in place, a unified data platform ensures data quality and consistency, transforming the way finance teams operate and making them truly data-driven.
Why Should Finance Leaders Act Now?
The promise to automate workflows and speed up data processing, or move outdated on-premise systems to the cloud is compelling on its own, but it is not the primary reason to undergo a systemic digital transformation.
Solving current challenges is just the beginning. Technology is constantly evolving, and it is doing so at an accelerated pace. Big data, data mesh, AI—the world has been advancing by leaps and bounds in recent decades.
A move toward transparency and data-centricity positions an organization to take advantage of these new developments rather than be threatened by them.
At the end of the day, a unified data platform is not simply an upgrade that pushes the needle 5% or 10%; it’s a different way of thinking—more flexible, more strategic, more precise. It’s a fundamental shift in how finance teams think, operate, and deliver value.
Many finance leaders are already seeing the transformative impact of unified data management on their organizations. If you’re curious about the specific results (with facts and numbers) that this new framework can bring to financial service providers, you can explore the case studies of Creditinfo and Home Credit, or listen to an interview with Radek Pluhar, CEO of Home Credit International, where he outlines the entire process, from choosing a particular solution to realizing the effectiveness of the new data architecture.
