Automation has been increasing for many decades - but automation is not intelligence. It is the addition of more cognitive capabilities in technologies that will allow companies to reconfigure their human capital requirements. Accounting is no exception.
By using accounting software and cloud computing, the modern finance chief can spend his/her time not simply in keeping files, books and tax returns in order, but gathering immense amounts of data and making computations more quickly and easily. The bulk of his time can now be spent analysing the data to discover ways for the business to improve operations and plan strategically for tomorrow.
There is ample historical evidence that innovation does not destroy jobs. For instance, in 1910 manufacturing, transportation, retail, and domestic services were the big employers in developed economies. Inventions such as the washing machine, dishwasher, microwave, and electric stove/oven put an end to domestic service as a big employer. Yet, the major economies didn’t experience massive waves of unemployment, because we invented new careers in professional services that didn’t exist in 1910.
Nonetheless, finance leaders need to recognise employees’ legitimate fear of being replaced – both in finance departments and the rest of the organisation. As employees perceive that digital transformation could threaten their jobs, they may well push back both consciously and unconsciously in the hope the project will fail and management will abandon the effort, sparing their jobs.