Greetings to all my FEI colleagues. You may remember me as Vice-Chair of the Small/Medium-Sized Business Subcommittee of CFIT, the Committee on Finance and Technology. Beginning in July, I became Chair of CFIT. I want to recognize Joe Prati for his capable leadership of CFIT over the last few years and express my appreciation for the great group of volunteers that I now have the honor of serving. We wish you all the best, Joe!
We held our quarterly meeting a few weeks ago in New York City and I wanted to share a few of my thoughts and observations. But first, a special thanks to American Express and David Knea for hosting us and providing many of the presenters. Another outstanding meeting in every respect!
As the pace of technological change accelerates, the imperative for companies to embrace this change becomes ever more urgent. Although large, established companies like AMEX are often at the forefront of adopting new technologies, these technologies will eventually trickle down. It is not a question of if, but when. As finance leaders, we can and will play a pivotal role in helping lead this change.
This defines the mission of CFIT: to help you, our members stay abreast of technologies that are both emerging and those that are already well along the adoption curve. One of our goals is to continue finding new and innovative ways to share this information. As our customers, I would welcome any feedback on how we can do that more effectively.
So, here are my highlights from the meeting:
- The philosophy on big data continues to evolve as companies grapple with ever-increasing amounts of data, not a lack of data. The deployment of 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) that 5G enables will only add to the problem. Data warehouses were the first large-scale attempt to mine all this data from multiple systems and sources, but these usually required structured data. We are now seeing a shift to data lakes. These are similar but hold increasingly unstructured data (think traditional data along with data from a growing number of non-financial systems and connected IoT devices). As artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to develop, they are making it possible to analyze this data and create insights that were not apparent before.
- Companies are increasingly addressing what the finance person of the future looks like. And this challenge is not isolated to the finance function. Technology will continue to change the way we work, and work that is transactional is increasingly at risk of being automated. The goal, though, is almost universally not to eliminate jobs but to enable people to spend more time on higher value-added activities. In the end, this should make jobs more enriching and the people who do them more valuable. The question is how do we ensure that people have the skills needed to make this shift?
- Lastly, investments in technology are often substantial and cut across large parts of the organization, while resources are usually limited. As such, there needs to be an evaluation process that is every bit as comprehensive as that used for capital investments and includes all relevant stakeholders. Otherwise, the likelihood for duplication and waste is high.
Well, that’s it for now. Look for more in-depth articles and analyses in the future. And if you have any feedback or comments, please send them to Marisa Peacock, Manager, Technical Acitivities at [email protected].