Editor's note: Held November 13-14 as part of a partnership with the CFO Leadership Council's Finance & Accounting Technology Expo (would you like to join!)Sapient Insights Group will host four interactive roundtable discussions to help senior finance leaders navigate and take advantage of the growing intersection between HR technology and finance technology. Click the link below to learn more and register for these free sessions.
Influencing Headcount: The CFO's Handbook on Employee ROI
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Where cost management meets innovation: Using compensation intelligence as a driver of profit and growth
The 2026 Compliance Handbook: Reduce risk and unlock business opportunities
While AI has taken center stage over the past year, we've also seen many examples of business growth and innovation that aren't related to AI. Organizations are finding ways to increase the value of their existing technology investments by using more built-in capabilities, focusing on data analytics, and rethinking business models and workforce strategies.
Here are some areas where HR and finance teams have applied out-of-the-box thinking and technology tools to increase revenue, adapt to external pressures, and improve business outcomes.
Data + Analytics = Business Results
These days, almost every organization is swimming in data. Virtually every business unit or department has systems that generate large amounts of information every day. Additionally, there are many external sources of valuable data, from government databases to research firms to industry and market reports.
Organizations that invest time and resources in analyzing internal and external data and use the resulting information in new ways reduce costs, increase revenue, and gain market advantage.
Labor costs are almost always the largest cost for any company, so I advise HR and finance leaders to prioritize managing and analyzing employee-related data. It's critical to go beyond standard metrics like revenue per employee and dig into employee details. For example, time and attendance data can tell you who is working when and where. Follow-up analysis allows you to assess whether your current schedule is making the most of your employees' skills.
The insights gained from skills data are invaluable for workforce planning and can help you make important decisions about hiring and investing in employee training. Comparing internal compensation data to external compensation data (such as industry segment, company size, location, etc.) ensures that you are paying employees fairly and makes it easier to manage recruitment, turnover, and retention.
Aligning with HR to enable business adaptability
In today's world, adaptability is a key requirement for success. Few companies continue to succeed by doing business exactly the same way they did even five years ago.
Tax changes, tariffs, supply chain uncertainty, and skills shortages are just some of the factors that require adaptability and build uncertainty into most business models. A strong partnership with HR can help you identify and capitalize on new business opportunities and make necessary changes.
For example, changes to the H-1B visa were just announced, raising the cost per application to $100,000 for some companies, forcing many companies to quickly pivot from past employment practices. Rather than bringing employees to the United States, some companies are planning to outsource tasks such as product development and customer service to employees living overseas. Such changes may introduce new compliance and compensation complexities and may require the opening of new offices in foreign countries.
HR expertise and data from existing solutions can help teams decide how best to adapt and address related challenges. What are the benefits, compliance, and compensation implications of hiring in different geographies? What specific skills are needed and how can employees with those skills be found most effectively? How should work done overseas be evaluated and managed? Do current HR and work-related solutions need to change in any way?
Business changes are often decided without sufficient input or support from HR leaders and teams. In addition to helping assess the impact of decisions before they are implemented, HR leaders can create communication strategies, monitor employee sentiment and engagement, and prepare managers and supervisors. All of this increases the likelihood that your business changes will be successful.
AI investment priorities
The HR technology market currently has hundreds of options when it comes to investing in AI tools and solutions. You'd be hard-pressed to find a vendor that isn't promoting some kind of AI tool, built-in AI capabilities, or AI-inspired partnerships.
According to our latest research, the use of AI and machine language tools in the workplace will increase from 12% in 2023 to 31% in 2025, an increase of 158%. And this statistic only reflects the use of “official” tools, so it doesn't tell the whole story. When we asked HR professionals if they were using AI/machine learning to achieve their objectives. personal For work tasks, that number increased to 81 percent.
Incentives for AI investments are typically increased efficiency, increased effectiveness of critical work processes, or reduced costs (or all of the above). While these are all worthy goals, we encourage businesses to first consider how the use of AI can actually drive revenue growth. When value creation is a priority, AI empowers employees to do more and better work, build stronger customer relationships, and make better decisions.
For example, consider automated menus, which are commonly disrespected when attempting to receive some type of customer service. Indeed, these tools can reduce call center staffing and, if implemented properly, ultimately route calls to the appropriate service team. But these bots often yell at your phone when your call is routed in the wrong direction or your voice is misunderstood. You get sent back to the main menu and have to start over, which makes you frustrated and angry.
In contrast to these frustrating automated menus, consider how AI can improve work performance and customer experience in the following scenarios.
Retailers integrate AI into their e-commerce platforms used for online purchases. Based on the user's actions, the system also creates a personalized user profile. This system is designed to allow store sales representatives and customer service agents to access your profile, purchase history, and other product data.
When you call or visit a store with a purchase complaint, employees have immediate access to current inventory information as well as information about past purchases and personal preferences. Employees don't waste time on tedious transactional tasks, looking up SKUs or asking for receipts. Instead, employees can focus on solving problems and suggesting replacements.
Rather than focusing solely on cost savings, the retailer also expects to increase revenue and customer retention. Admittedly, this is an aspirational example. But we all know how customer interactions, positive or negative, can impact loyalty to a company. This use of AI is aimed at employee empowerment and customer satisfaction, not job replacement.
