WORLD ACADEMY OF INFORMATICS AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES
ISSN : 2278-1315
to watch. In fact, in October 2017 the Association
announced a new collaboration with the Wall Street
For the finance professional, the automation of repetitive tasks
Blockchain Alliance (WSBA). Together, this partnership
will free up their time to concentrate on creating and
will explore and define the impact of blockchain technology
preserving business value. This shift in skills sets from
for the accounting profession.
‘knowledge’ to ‘meaning’ is self-evident in a 2017 McKinsey
report into automation. McKinsey’s research examined groups
of occupational activities and ranked them according to their
IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE FINANCE
susceptibility to automation. Work activities at risk of
FUNCTION
The use of technology in the finance function is creating a
automation include data collection, data processing and
model of intelligence augmentation, where technology
predictable physical work. Less automatable activities include
augments human intelligence. In the finance function of the
managing others, applying expertise, stakeholder interactions
future, the technical capabilities of robotics and algorithms
and unpredictable physical work. McKinsey’s forecast is that:
combines with the creativity and empathy of the human
‘while few occupations are fully automatable, 60 percent of
accountants.
Technology
is
augmenting
finance
all occupations have at least 30 percent technically
professionals’ capabilities to make them faster, more
automatable activities’.
efficient and more productive. It’s no longer human versus
machine, because new technologies can learn from the
When McKinsey’s estimations of automation are overlaid
accountant and be customized to fit the specific needs of
with the basic finance activities explored in our first emerging
your finance function. In what has been termed the ‘Fourth
themes briefing paper, it becomes clear that activities carried
Industrial Revolution’, or ‘Industry 4.0’, where cyber and
out in isolation in the finance function are at risk.
physical systems fuse, the role of the finance professional
remains important.
Figure 1: The potential for automation of the basic finance
For those involved in manufacturing industries, the
activities
intelligence augmentation model will be nothing new.
You’ll have witnessed the adoption of computer and robotic
automation to the production assembly line, and how it has
changed workers’ relationships with technology. Baldwin
underlines
the
impact
of
Computer-Integrated
Manufacturing (CIM): It has already produced a tectonic
shift in manufacturing in high-wage nations – moving
manufacturing from a situation where machines helped
workers make things, to a situation where workers help
machines make things.
This will lead to a point in the future where computer
performance outpaces human performance. When this
happens with technologies employed within the finance
function, so the finance professionals’ relationship and focus
will change. They will then be judged on how well they
work with, and complement, robotic process automation
It reveals that the opportunity for the finance professional lies
(RPA) and algorithms.
at the management end, rather than the accounting side of the
basic function activities. This heralds a move away from the
AUTOMATION
more automatable activities of assembling data to provide
Technology automation within the finance function is
information and turning data analysis into insight, to areas that
already witnessing the end of certain tasks. Take the writing
current technology is unable to automate. These include
of monthly management information as an example.
advising through stakeholder interaction and applying
Computer software packages are now available that can
expertise to help with impactful decision-making.
produce management information at the press of a button, in
real time, with personalized language and terminology that
In one interview with a multinational bank, the employee
suits your organization. The role of the finance professional,
explained, “transactional processes and tasks are being
therefore, shifts from one of knowledge collection and
automated and the savings redeployed into getting people to
creation, to the interpretation of meaning and curating the
do other things that improve their productivity.” For this
information outputs produced by the software solution. In
organization, the freed resource is being reassigned to finance
this situation, the use of Twyman’s law must be liberally
business partnering.
used: ‘Any figure that looks interesting or different is
usually wrong’. Technological applications are amazing at
Dr Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of Wired
providing solutions and assigning a number, but these are
magazine, and the futurist advisor on the 2002 Spielberg
abstractions. Real value is only achieved once the
science fiction film, Minority Report, explains that
abstractions have context and human story re-attached to
technological advancements will take away the activities that
them by the finance professional. In a world that is rarely
resemble drudgery; the ones nobody really wants to do.
black and white or rational, the accountant can work with
ambiguity and facilitate organizational debate when faced
with key decision-making situations.
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