2025: How Finance Work and Technology Are Changing — and What's Next

As digital transformation and automation sweep through, finance is in for major change. Deloitte's report "Finance 2025" offers a look at how the function will evolve over the next few years, laying out the core trends driving that shift and how to get ready for it.

Source: https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/services/financial-advisory/perspectives/gx-finance-digital-transformation-for-cfos.html

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🐋 SUMMARY: Getting finance ready for a digital future

By 2025, finance will become a far more efficient and strategic function as technology reshapes the way it works. CFOs and finance leaders need a clear vision and strategy to prepare for that change. Accelerating automation and advancing technology represent a major opportunity to cut costs and lift productivity.

1. Automating finance operations and adopting blockchain

By 2025, touchless transactions will be the norm in finance, driven by automation and blockchain. Cloud-based ERP, automation, and AI will streamline financial processes and free up people. Blockchain in particular will raise transaction transparency and strengthen data security, enabling more efficient finance operations.

2. Finance's changing role: built around insight

As routine finance operations get automated, the function will shift toward delivering business insight and strategic services. Finance professionals will take on more complex analysis and support higher-order business decisions. Success will hinge on talent that pairs new technical skills with business acumen — and that talent will be central to a company's competitive edge.

3. Moving to a real-time finance cycle

Traditional periodic reporting will no longer sit at the center of finance operations. As real-time data processing and predictive analytics become feasible, finance will be able to deliver data and support decisions in real time. That shift will sharply improve cycle efficiency and make the business more agile.

4. The rise of self-service

Self-service will become the new standard in finance. Business users will be able to pull the data they need, build their own reports, and analyze budgets directly. Along the way, smart agents will anticipate user needs and surface the right information, smoothing the interaction between business users and the finance function.

5. New operating models emerge

Automation and AI are reshaping the operating model. Bots and algorithms will augment people and become part of the finance function, reducing reliance on labor-intensive work and shifting focus to more strategic tasks. Finance will need to embrace a hybrid workforce — a more diversified mix that includes freelancers, gig workers, and crowdsourced talent.

6. Why data standardization and governance matter

The spread of APIs will push data standardization forward, but plenty of companies will still struggle with data management. Data quality and accuracy remain a core issue for finance, and solving it takes disciplined data management and governance. Successful digital transformation depends on data-management experts and technical talent.

7. A changing finance workforce and a new workplace

As digital transformation accelerates, finance will need new kinds of talent — data scientists, business analysts, and storytellers. They'll drive more strategic analysis and forecasting to inform business decisions. The new workplace will prize collaboration and flexibility, using digital tools to deliver and analyze information in real time.

Use an AI-powered finance solution like Numen to get ahead of the changes coming to finance in 2025 — and stay competitive!