Could one step forward take you light years ahead?

We live in an age of disruption. CFOs know they must respond to digital transformation, which has become one of the biggest strategic imperatives facing them and critical to their survival. Digital is the defining mega-trend of our time and is expected to experience rapid growth in the coming years.

We are now entering the fourth industrial revolution, also known as 'Industry 4.0'. Demographic shifts, combined with globalisation and the rapid development of digital technologies, will bring significant changes to the way we live and work.

In a 4.0 world, smart technologies are redefining industry and business models. The CFO will need to respond, both in terms of supporting the business in the face of this disruption and ensuring the finance function is fit for a Finance 4.0 world. Accordingly, organisations, and particularly CFOs, are required to adapt to the digital landscape and to create innovative, effective and efficient working models. Robotic Process Automation, or RPA, is playing an increasingly important role in driving efficiency and cost rationalisation. Embracing this disruptive technology has become a cornerstone of the CFO's agenda.

RPA has the potential to not only help companies remain profitable and maintain a competitive advantage, it also helps build the connections between IT, innovation and business operations and can be an effective entry point to enable the adoption of further technologies.

RPA is likely to play an increasingly important role in driving efficiency. Not only can the technology provide lower-cost process automation, it can also enhance customer satisfaction by reducing manual errors.

RPA tools can offer software automation that mimic human execution of tasks via existing user interfaces. They act as an interface between various financial reporting systems and a way of automating repetitive finance processes. This can have many applications in the financial services industry, where the combination of high transaction volumes and increased regulation place a premium on an organisation's ability to streamline operations and ensure appropriate levels of control.

EY recently launched the 'Finance Chatbot' for CFOs; a conversational intelligent finance engine with in-built voice recognition and conversational front-end interface. It allows the CFOs/C-Suites to interact and command the software to perform tasks such as analysing and presenting data, identifying anomalies and producing impressive financial reports, without physically touching their computers.

In the finance function of the future, leading CFOs will be those that strike the right balance between technology and people, and continually work to focus each on the tasks that best suit their skill sets. This will free the CFO up to focus on innovation, responding to the rapidly changing business context and driving the business forward.

As more individual tasks become automatable through RPA, jobs will be redefined and re-categorised. Successful finance functions in the future will be those that find the right balance between robotics and people, with each doing what they do best. The best way to think about robots is as the ultimate companion to humans. Let robots do repetitive tasks, and free up time for people to do more intelligent tasks.