The notion that AI and intelligent automation has completely transformed finance departments was confirmed in a new report from Oracle and analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group.
According to the research, an overwhelming majority of CFOs (83 percent) believe that, in the next five years, the financial close process will be completely automated. Seventy-seven percent expect that the majority of financial approvals will be completely automated over the same period. As companies implement technologies including RPA to achieve those goals, the report says the role of finance departments must evolve.
“No longer is it enough for finance and operations to simply report financial results and streamline processes,” the report’s authors wrote. “In fact, 85 percent of survey respondents believe it is imperative for the finance organization to transform from reporting on ‘what’ is happening in the business to ‘why’ things are happening. So how can finance and operations teams, once viewed as cost centers, evolve to meet these heightened demands while also maintaining budgetary discipline? One answer is to deliver strategic decision support and better business performance. A means to that end is to automate more processes using emerging technologies, so that finance and operations teams can focus less on transaction processing and tactical support (the ‘what’) and more on strategy (the ‘why’ and how to respond to it).”