The robots are coming? Implications for financial shared services.

This report examines the finance function of high-growth businesses and how this has evolved, providing practical guidance to high potential businesses on how to harness the full potential of the finance function.

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Finance leaders obsess about the transformation levers – people, process, technology. The technology component has mainly been limited to communication widgets that facilitate workflow and e-invoicing.

Enter the robots. Robots, robotics, robotics process automation, applied automation – whatever you call it – conjures up an image of a machine replicating the activities of a human doing the work. It is evocative, it’s high-tech, but most importantly it is emblematic of what some see as the next step in the evolution of business process delivery – fewer people in favour of machine-based learning technologies.

But what is a robot? This paper examines the views of ACCA’s finance transformation, shared services and outsourcing advisory group on robots.