Finance Monthly July 2019 Edition

28 www.finance-monthly.com FINANCIAL INNOVATION & FINTECH - DATA Digital transformation: from buzzword to reality Business’ biggest buzzword, digital transformation, has taken the technology world by storm. Despite being around since the 1990s, it has recently become a term that permeates almost every business strategy or vision for the future. Today, every technology provider claims it can enable digital transformation, and all well-informed CEOs are mandating it to drive their business forward. The key to unlocking this business growth starts with technology’s second-biggest buzzword: data. Barriers to a data-driven digital transformation While data may be ‘the new oil’, an uncontrollable explosion of unrefined data doesn’t add any value to a business. You must be able to sort, process and examine data, view it from different angles and understand how to extract intelligent insights from it. To do this, having the right infrastructure in place is key. Indeed, large businesses in particular often struggle with legacy systems that aren’t designed to handle the volume of data we now produce and consume. For finance departments, reliance on outdated technology is certainly part of the problem, but there are also other issues that need to be addressed. A recent BlackLine survey Andy Botrill, VP EMEA of BlackLine, delves into the key questions that finance departments need to address in order to become truly data-driven. Andy Botrill, VP EMEA at BlackLine CAN DATA DRIVE FINANCE DEPARTMENTS? “ “ The key to unlocking this business growth starts with technology’s second-biggest buzzword: data.