Controllership’s year ahead

February 21, 2023

A blog post by Beth Kaplan and Katie Glynn, Deloitte & Touche LLP

Last year ushered in more transformation for accounting and controllership as businesses continued to adapt to an evolving world, uncertain economy, and new technology. There are many tech trends driving innovation and continued transformation that may guide controllers and the finance workforce on the digital journey in the year ahead. From AI to immersive internet and more decentralized ecosystems, emerging technology will continue to play a vital role in controllership’s strategic priorities. In what is bound to be another year of changes to the finance and digital landscape, what tech trends are the most significant to the finance organization? Here are the top tech trends to be on the lookout for this year and how they may impact the future of finance and controllership.

Opening up to AI: Learning to trust AI

While the value of artificial intelligence (AI) is undoubtable, the question has now become how to use it best—and that often boils down to how much workers and end users can both apply and trust AI tools. To apply AI tools, organizations should think of the tool as just an extension of the work they are already doing and the capabilities and tools they already have in place. In essence, AI capabilities can be something businesses collaborate with, framing the tool as a colleague or assistant. Right now, this may seem far removed from finance and accounting work as there are many barriers to seeing AI break through to the finance and accounting space—such as finding the right skill sets in the workforce and having trust in AI. However, as AI tools start to trickle into the ecosystem this year and beyond, building trust in the technology will be key to introducing the benefits of AI into finance and accounting.

Enablers to developing trust in AI

• Data transparency: Enables end users to understand why data is being collected and how it will be used.
• Reliable AI: Helps people understand the bar for accuracy so they can hold AI accountable for meeting established standards.
• Explainable algorithms: Sheds light on how decisions are made to users, employees, and others affected by AI systems.

Above the clouds: Taming multicloud chaos

With the advantages of cloud services and the influx of cloud-based solutions over the past several years, many companies have become multicloud, meaning they have contracts in place that utilize cloud services from various providers. In fact, 85% of today’s businesses are using two or more cloud providers, and 25% of those businesses are using at least five different cloud providers¹. The majority of these companies that are multicloud today got there through the value proposition but didn’t thoroughly consider how to manage so many different cloud providers. The result has increased the complexities or chaos, creating inefficiencies in the cloud computing model, and likely has increased costs associated with operating solutions in the cloud. While consolidating cloud-based providers is one solution, the merging approach to reducing multicloud complexity is the metacloud. Metacloud streamlines the multicloud complexity and will likely become a valuable addition to the finance and accounting landscape.

What to know about the metacloud

• It sits above an organization’s various cloud platforms, leveraging native technical standards through application programming interfaces (APIs).
• It provides access to common services such as storage and computing, AI, data, security, operations governance, and application development and deployment.
• It delivers consistent, centralized control over multiple cloud instances through a common interface.

Flexibility, the best ability: Reimagining the tech workforce

Along with the many other tech trends, such as emerging technologies and the abundance of data, generational changes and hybrid work (which accelerated with the pandemic) will continue disrupting the way individuals and teams work. This year and in the near-term future, it is imperative to think about the work and the workforce differently. Finance and accounting should reimagine the workforce and workplace to focus on the skills—both human and technical—needed to deliver IT products and services as technology innovations will likely lead to technology teams shaping the business instead of just working to keep the lights on. In addition, the growing popularity of automation and the permanence of the hybrid work environment should free up finance professionals to navigate what’s next and shape a more flexible, skills-based workforce of the future.

Among many enablers of transformation, the year ahead is about finding certainty in the uncertain world and accepting the value of innovation to navigate controllership transformation and drive strategic priorities into a finance of the future. To explore additional tech trends to look out for this year and hear Deloitte’s economic outlook for the year ahead, listen to our Dbriefs webcast: Controllership year in review: Finding stability in uncertainty.

End notes

¹Deloitte Insights, Deloitte Tech Trends 2023.