The term “digital” is everywhere these days. Digital this, digital that, digital “innovation” or digital “transformation,” – buzzwords that assume everyone knows what we are really talking about. But many are left guessing: what does this mean, exactly? Is it a technology? A culture? A way of working?
The digital wave has expanded from front to back office and perhaps looking at what is happening now, the current and emerging back office applications of “digital” in business will clarify what we really mean when we say “digital.” While the field of finance is thousands of years old, it is a good place to start to appreciate how far digital has evolved and where it might go.
Welcome to finance in a digital world!
The finance function is changing rapidly in leading companies, as they experiment with and scale innovative technologies that are collectively changing how work gets done in finance. How far will this go and what might finance look like in 2025? At Deloitte, we’ve outlined eight predictions:
- The finance factory: Computers powered by artificial intelligence and blockchain will increasingly work alongside human workers, freeing them to make decisions and be more creative.
- Finance’s role: Automated operations will enable finance to “double down” on business insights and service.
- Finance goes real-time: Periodic reporting will be a thing of the past, allowing the rest of the business on-demand access to reports and forecasts.
- Self-service: Smart agents, chatbots, and more are here to help finance customers and clients solve problems on their own. This will make finance uneasy.
- Operating models: New service delivery models will bring a diverse finance workforce. Robots and algorithms will integrate with freelancers, gig workers and crowds. Automation will be weighed against onshore and offshore operations.
- Core finance platforms: Finance applications and microservices will challenge enterprise resource planning vendors. They will be ready to take on this challenge.
- Data: Companies will still struggle to clean up data messes, despite the rise of APIs for data standardization.
- Talent: What will the future of finance roles look like? Data scientists and effective communicators will surge in importance as employees work with digital tools.
More than 200 finance executives and other business professionals have responded to an online poll we started in late July 2018, in which we asked for feedback on these predictions with a simple question: “Tell us you level of agreement or disagreement with each.” And here’s what they had to say:
All of these predictions present finance practitioners with questions, forks in the road, and unpredictable junctures where they may have to make hard choices on implementation and execution. While some pilots may easily prove the ROI of technological adoption or software solutions, other transformations – like operating model shifts and new talent models – may take years to manifest results or work through growing pains.
The forces pushing finance into the digital era could face numerous frictions that may slow things down. Peers and senior leadership may hesitate to get on board even as competitors, suppliers, or other business units reap the benefits of digital in finance. Combining technologies to reimagine how finance work is accomplished is not straightforward and will take time. At Deloitte, we’re listening to our clients and our peers, and we recognize how hard it can be to overcome that hesitation. It’s critical to ensure teams are ready for change, comfortable working in new ways with unfamiliar skills, and feel secure enough in their roles to take risks.
It’s hard to overstate, however, how much finance stands to gain. Gone is the stigma of being a “dinosaur” in the back office, hunched over spreadsheets, toiling in obscurity as the rest of the business brings on bright shiny objects and exciting new skills. Finance likely will be faster, more agile, more collaborative, and more insightful than ever before – and its potential value contribution is only going to increase.
The opportunity for finance to thrive in a digital world is undoubtedly here. Are you and the rest of your organization onboard?
