As the new decade has shown, it is no longer an option for finance leaders in government organisations to choose whether or not they use technology to propel their organisation toward success. It has become a necessity. Government entities must become increasingly ‘technical’ if they are to meet their stakeholders’ needs and assure accountability to their citizens by using predictive and prescriptive data analytics strategically, along with digital, mobile, and cloud technologies.
In the past, it was assumed that only private and regulated business sectors needed to focus on technology. Now, however, the government finance function has risen to a standard-setting role. This shift has been seen in how governments have led the charge in all areas of finance. This report focuses on the growing role of finance technology in an increasingly competitive global environment. The field of finance digitalisation has been evolving, with technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and accounting automation becoming prevalent. Now even more changes are being introduced globally, and both public and private sectors must be familiar with the changes to evolve with them.
The pandemic uncovered vulnerabilities at all levels of government. Many mission-critical applications run on legacy systems and antiquated programming languages that cannot be easily changed or scaled up, which clarifies the need for modern, digital government services. The pandemic has underscored the importance of investments in digital services, collaboration tools, broadband expansion, and other areas — namely, zero-trust cybersecurity, the expanded use of identity and access management platforms, cloud migration, and application modernisation.
“4 State and Local Government Tech Trends to Watch in 2022”6
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 Phil Goldstein, ‘4 State and Local Government Tech Trends to Watch in 2022’, StateTech magazine (CDW Corp., 7 December 2021).
Our initial research for the Managing local government performance report indicated that, when it comes to technology, the main roles of finance professionals and leaders were focused on investment decisions. However, it is also clear that these roles are expanding to include a broader focus — increasingly, finance professionals are working with colleagues across the business to translate data-driven insights into impact. We recognised this shift in the 2015 CGMA report Finance Business Partnering: The conversations that count. This report identified the need for organisations to develop new competencies to benefit fully from improvements in data collection and analysis. We continue to explore the future role of the finance business partner through the Future of Finance initiative.
Government leaders, too, have an expanded role. It is no longer enough simply to make the right investment decisions. Working together with their IT and finance colleagues, they now have a significant role in helping embed new data and digital initiatives.
Leading by example, they must ensure that the information and insight generated is used proactively to support better, more sustainable public services.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________7 Managing local government performance, CGMA, 2015,
Ted Ross, CIO, City of Los Angeles Information Technology Agency
‘Management accountants … must develop an understanding of the data sources in the business and work closely with colleagues in IT to capture and extract data from the organisation’s IT systems. Second, they should engage with data scientists to help ask the right questions of the data and interpret insights and patterns arising from the analytical process. Finally, they must work closely with managers across the business to help ensure that data is gathered and interpreted properly to help inform business decisions’.
CGMA report, Building a better business together8
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________8 CGMA report, Building a better business together: Welcome to finance business partnering, Finance Business Partnering: The conversations that count series (2018).
