Deloitte launched their 11th annual Tech Trends Report at a pan-African virtual event with more than 500 sub-Saharan clients and employees at the end of July. The report outlines trends that have arisen in response to persistent IT challenges, the role of technologies in creating new opportunities for the enterprise and the role of all of this in driving significant change.
It details that emerging trends will continue to transform businesses and unlock their true potential for innovation. “Last year’s Tech Trends Report explored nine macro technology forces that form the backbone of business innovation and transformation. This year’s update takes a fresh look at enterprise adoption of these macro forces and explores how they are shaping the tech trends we predict will disrupt businesses over the next 18 to 24 months,” explains Kevin Govender, Deloitte Africa’s CIO programme leader.
Finance and the future of IT
One of the emerging trends that is of particular interest and relevance today, especially in a world economy limping due to a global pandemic, explore the funding side of innovation. As a starting point, it’s critical to remember that the tension between IT funding needs and finance’s stringent processes does not disappear overnight.
The report suggests that IT and finance leaders must develop strategies to successfully work together and develop flexible approaches for innovating and operating at speed. Whether these partnerships are developed in an attempt to support innovation, mitigate disruption or enable digital transformation, IT needs finance’s support to effectively drive technology innovation.
For finance, embracing IT means transitioning this function into the future. It is all about updating and improving budgeting and accounting processes to streamline their work consequently, supporting innovation.
In line with this, according to a 2016 EY report, the future finance function demands a healthy balance between technology and people. This insight is increasingly relevant across industries in 2020. “In the finance function of the future, leading CFOs will be those that strike the right balance between technology and people, and continually work to focus each on the tasks that best suit their skill sets. This will free the CFO up to focus on innovation, responding to the rapidly changing business context and driving the business forward,” the EY report states.
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