A new survey conducted by Grant Thornton LLP finds that more than two-thirds (69 percent) of corporate finance functions are planning to increase their investment this year in technologies that accelerate business change. Four in 10 expect the spending increase to be larger than 10 percent.
The survey of more than 300 CFOs and senior finance executives indicates that about 24 percent of all finance teams are currently in the process of adopting advanced analytics, and another 49 percent expect to do so within the next two years. Survey respondents are also interested in artificial intelligence (AI) but see it as a more distant goal; 20 percent expect to adopt AI within the next five years. Other technologies that are top-of-mind in finance are distributed ledger technologies such as the blockchain, machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA), and optical character recognition.
“While investment strategies for digital transformation have traditionally been influenced by an organization's desire to improve operational performance and reduce costs, respondents have shown that future investment strategies will shift to more strategic opportunities—chief among these being improving the customer experience,” says Srikant Sastry, national managing principal of advisory services at Grant Thornton. “The simple truth is that more than three-quarters of the executives surveyed feel that digital transformation is critical for their company.”
In many of these organizations, the digital transformation is currently inhibited by concerns about readiness. Finance executives worry about how they will configure their staffs to manage radically different technologies. More than half (52 percent) of survey respondents said they would prefer to retrain the staff they already have, whereas 20 percent would rather recruit new employees with expertise on the new technologies and 17 percent would prefer to outsource.
“It was eye-opening how many respondents share a sense of being underprepared for digital transformation,” Sastry says. “It's clear that CFOs will need to assume more responsibilities and have a better understanding of transformational technologies. Plus, they'll need to better partner with CIOs. The ultimate goal is to balance forward-looking technology investments with today's operational needs.”
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