Transformative Times: Big Data, Analytics, Al and the Finance Professional.

• Author: Joachim, Aubrey
• Position: Tech Talk

Artificial intelligence and robotization will affect many elements of the human endeavor. including the way we interact, how we work and what work humans need not do.

These advancements present an opportunity for finance professionals --provided they embrace the tools. Businesses will still have roles in which insight, transparency, stewardship and ethical corporate conduct are valued, and strategic finance professionals can fill these roles. Risks remain, but mainly for those who fail to appreciate the new tools and get left behind.

Finance professionals must live with this changing and disruptive--but opportune environment, and explore ways whereby the finance function can harness the power of big data and analytics to significantly transform itself and the organization.

Transformation can manifest itself in a number of ways across the entire finance spectrum, from the transactional space of the finance pyramid to the top end of knowledge and value generation.

In today's age of digitization there's a major shift in the way transactional data are captured, recorded, verified and converted into information. All of this is about to change even further with the advent of technologies such as Blockchain and distributed ledgers.

Inventories and inventory transactions are another case in point. Inventory receipts, issues, stock-takes and valuations are today automated and digitally tracked using radio frequency identification, which can be reflected directly as transactions in ledgers and financial statements. Human accountants may not be required for this once major role that they played in organizations.

Add to this mix all the other data --customer, supplier and human resource, as well as myriad external data. The end game is that massive volumes of organizational data can be accurately captured more quickly and efficiently.

The challenge, then, is deriving value from all these data points.

The era of preparing periodic accounts --month-end, quarter-end, etc.--will be over. An organization's financial position will be instantly and accurately determined, and at any point in time. The human accounting involved in the process also will decline.

Reporting will take an entirely different meaning in organizations. A report by definition is a backward look. Self-service reporting, where organizational managers will be taught by their finance business partners how to extract the information they need, will replace the need for defined periodic...