Digital transformation is often feared, with many assuming computers will take over their role. We look into how digital transformation can evolve your career and provide more data for your decision making.
In this week's episode of our Learn Better Podcast, host Stuart Pedley Smith, Head of Learning at Kaplan, looks at digital transformation in the world of accountancy.
Our guest is Kat Bond, Head of Partner Consulting and Verticals at Xero, who develop cloud based accounting software for small businesses. Kat explains how digital transformation is about improving our processes rather than replacing people, and how it can help businesses to gain better data to help make better decisions.
Accountants are ideally placed to move forward with digital transformation, allowing computers to do the menial tasks will allow them to focus on the human side of things, make sense of the data, and have more advisory conversations.
[Digital transformation]’s not kind of papering the cracks with just new technology, it's actually changing what you're doing with that technology to give you a better solution overall.
Key topics
What is digital transformation?
Simply put, digital transformation is the integration of technology into your workflow to make sure you have the most streamlined processes. You take away the unnecessary areas of human interaction and use automation where possible.
Getting everyone on board
Fundamentally digital transformation can change how people operate. However it isn’t about taking everything that a person does and making it digital. It is about improving how we operate and evolving roles to utilise computers where possible to enhance what we do.
Many people are worried that computers will take away the need for them to do their job, but that this is not true. Computers don’t have the ability to interpret numbers, they just publish them. A human will always be needed for the advisory side of things to explain what the data means and provide suggestions for business decisions.
Kat also points out that we often don't talk about the new roles that come off the back of digitisation, whether that is evolving current roles or creating brand new ones.
On paper [Digital Transformation] looks really simplistic, the reality is that there’s a lot of humans along the way that you need to then change the mindset of.
Digital transformation in accountancy
With digitisation we gain more data, and having this data just helps us make better decisions. When you look at the role of accountants, having so much information will then allow them to do so much more, dig deeper into the numbers and be more granular when advising organisations.
Following the pandemic we can see how important accountants are to keeping organisations and the economy a float. Allowing these roles to evolve and optimise processes with technology will only benefit organisations and help them to thrive.
It's accountants that keep our economy going.