8DECEMBER 2019IN MYOPINIONMaking the Most of Exponential Technologies in Financial Reporting ust five years ago, technology's role in the finance department was static: It supported more technical work rather than enabling it, thus promoting self-service for users, and adding limited efficiency to decades-old processes. Now, finance technology has entered an exciting new realm of "exponentializers," which have dramatically improved capabilities and fundamentally altered the nature of financial reporting. Gone are the days of manually running reports; here to stay is the future of in-memory computing, cloud-based data, and AI that uses natural language generation to create detailed, accurate, and comprehensive reports. Businesses that don't exploit these benefits are, at best, missing a competitive advantage. Worst case, they could be left behind.Think of the box scores in the newspaper sports pages: Every day, a computer generates a top-line recap of what happened in each game. That goes far beyond statistical analysis--which may have been possible in a rudimentary fashion decades ago--to embrace short, nuanced descriptions of what took place in the game. If a player singled to left field, drove in two runs, or struck out the side in the 9th inning, the computer can capture that on its own, much more quickly and accurately than a human observer.The same revolution is happening now in financial reporting. As other functions in business embrace technology, finance too has an exciting new suite of tools that defy the staid, traditional reputation often erroneously ascribed to the CFO. Once the realm of "modernizers" and incremental improvements, finance is now a key proving ground for exponential technologies that can drive results enterprise-wide. JBy Tadd Morganti, MD, Finance & Enterprise Performance, Deloitte Consulting LLPTadd Morganti
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