Automation And Machine Learning: Transforming The Office Of The CFO

In a recent McKinsey survey, only 13 percent of CFOs and other senior business executives polled said their finance organizations use automation technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning. What's more, when asked how much return on investment the finance organization has generated from digitization and automation in the past 12 months, only 5 percent said it was a substantial return; the more common response was "modest" or "minimal" returns. While that number may seem low right now, automation is coming to the finance function, and it will play a crucial role in furthering the CFO's position in the C-suite. Research suggests corporate finance teams spend about 80 percent of their time manually gathering, verifying, and consolidating data, leaving only about 20 percent for higher-level tasks, such as analysis and decision-making. In its truest form, RPA will unleash a new wave of digital transformation in corporate finance.