A new survey conducted by Grant Thornton LLP finds that morethan two-thirds (69 percent) of corporate finance functions areplanning to increase their investment this year in technologiesthat accelerate business change. Four in 10 expect the spendingincrease to be larger than 10 percent.

The survey of more than 300 CFOs and seniorfinance executives indicates that about 24 percent of all financeteams are currently in the process of adopting advanced analytics, and another 49 percentexpect to do so within the next two years. Survey respondents arealso interested in artificial intelligence (AI) but see it as amore distant goal; 20 percent expect to adopt AI within the nextfive years. Other technologies that are top-of-mind in finance aredistributed ledger technologies such as the blockchain, machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA), and opticalcharacter recognition.

“While investment strategies for digital transformation havetraditionally been influenced by an organization's desire toimprove operational performance and reduce costs, respondents haveshown that future investment strategies will shift to morestrategic opportunities—chief among these being improving thecustomer experience,” says Srikant Sastry, national managingprincipal of advisory services at Grant Thornton. “The simple truthis that more than three-quarters of the executives surveyed feelthat digital transformation is critical for their company.”

In many of these organizations, the digital transformation iscurrently inhibited by concerns about readiness. Finance executivesworry about how they will configure their staffs to manageradically different technologies. More than half (52 percent) ofsurvey respondents said they would prefer to retrain the staff theyalready have, whereas 20 percent would rather recruit new employeeswith expertise on the new technologies and 17 percent would preferto outsource.

“It was eye-opening how many respondents share a sense of beingunderprepared for digital transformation,” Sastry says. “It's clearthat CFOs will need to assume more responsibilities and have abetter understanding of transformational technologies. Plus,they'll need to better partner with CIOs. The ultimate goal is tobalance forward-looking technology investments with today'soperational needs.”