Online graduate degrees in accounting are popular among working professionals seeking to advance their careers. They allow students to balance their work and family life while studying.
Several trends are impacting the future of finance. The AICPA & CIMA Future of Finance research program will continue to delve into these emerging themes in upcoming papers.
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Cloud Adoption
As a technology-driven industry, finance embraces cloud adoption for greater operational agility. This includes shifting from centralized data management and security to cloud-based platforms supporting collaboration across the finance ecosystem. This allows companies to meet customer needs better, increase efficiency, and deliver a more robust bottom line.
As part of their effort to boost performance, finance leaders are also focusing more time on value-added activities like strategic planning, treasury and risk management, and policy setting. This shift means they can build deeper capabilities in these areas, creating a positive feedback loop that supports their ability to drive organizational change.
The future of finance is exciting, but it has its challenges. To succeed, finance professionals must be prepared to evolve into tech-savvy analysts, decision-makers, and collaborators. An MBA accounting online at William Paterson University can help prepare you to lead in the new world of fintech. Learn more by speaking with a graduate admissions counselor today!
The New Operating Model
Finance organizations need to transform the operating model that supports them. The best way is to build capacity in areas that add value while leveraging new technology to automate routine functions. This approach requires a new skill set, including understanding the capabilities and limitations of digital tools.
A strategic provider and managed services strategy can help finance leaders achieve this. This allows them to improve response time and reduce costs by partnering with external parties better equipped to manage high-volume, repetitive processes, such as RPA or “swivel chair” operations where data is routinely selected from one system and re-entered into another.
These changes also reshape the size of finance teams. The number of staff devoted to transactional tasks declines as multi-disciplinary talent teams act as agile task forces and can adapt to internal and external volatility. The result is a greater focus on strategic activities such as FP&A, capital planning, financial risk management, and policy setting.
Digital Transformation
The term “digital transformation” has become so common that it’s nearly a cliché. Still, financial institutions prioritizing it will be better equipped to optimize operations and deliver the desired customer experience. This means more efficient processes, fewer errors, faster execution, and improved tracking and analytics.
Today’s tech-savvy customers have clear expectations about how their journey should unfold, and leveraging the right technologies can help make it happen. This includes self-service analytics that provide an integrated view of their interactions with the organization.
This can reduce data silos that hamper collaboration and innovation, mainly when working with a large amount of data. As a result, digital transformation can improve overall business performance and support regulatory compliance.
The Future of Finance
Finance organizations are focusing on four key areas to achieve their next frontier of efficiency and effectiveness:
- Real-time insights
- Minimizing human error and biases
- Speeding up workflows and decision-making
- Building a network of capital
These four moves will help finance leaders deliver more excellent value to their companies and build a competitive advantage.
Moreover, new finance capabilities are evolving into tech-savvy analysts, decision-makers, and collaborators. These include management accountants, financial analysts, and business partnering roles that combine deep technical expertise with enabling skills like communication and collaboration. In addition, a growing appetite for Open Finance is reshaping the landscape with new operating models and collaborative partnerships. This includes unbundling banking into contextual and conscious services, peer-to-peer lending platforms, and a broader drive from many companies to do well by doing good. In the future, this means a move away from periodic reporting and toward continuous analysis of data and processes. Visit Magazines this will accelerate the rate of change in finance and pressure traditional business models.
