CPA_Practice_Advisor_July_2020 - 24

BRIDGING THE GAP

The Great Leap: Convergence & Acceleration
By Marc Staut

THERE ARE SO many things coming out of the COVID-19 time that it can be hard to see past
the next few weeks or months. However, I believe that when we look back at this time,
we'll realize we really took a huge leap forward when it comes to technology. Perhaps you
can already sense this in the way that mobile adoption and collaboration really jumped
forward. For example, Zoom has become a verb meaning meeting virtually, much like we
use Google to describe searching online. It's become part of our vocabulary, and in a few
years, it will be hard to remember a time before technology started that acceleration.
CONVERGENCE
As we talk about acceleration and
emerging technologies, I want to
make sure everyone is familiar with
the concept of convergence.
Convergence is a theory that refers
to the tendency for technologies that
were initially unrelated to become
more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For
example, in the mid-2000s, everyone
had cell phones for making calls and
iPods for listening to music. Now, few
people own a separate iPod because
they can access all of their music
on their smartphones. Two devices
became one. The phones and MP3
players from the yesteryear are hardly
recognizable because we have that
accelerating technology that moved
us so far forward.

EXPONENTIAL
TECHNOLOGIES
When we take two different technologies and start thinking about some
of the exponential technologies that
are out there, the power comes from
thinking about how they can be used
together.
Some of the emerging technologies right now are:
■■Quantum computing
■■5G
■■Robotic process automation (RPA)
■■Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML)
■■Blockchain
■■The Internet of Things (IoT)
■■Data analytics

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JULY 2020 ■

Anyone who's run into me at a
conference knows I could probably
spend an hour talking about each of
these technologies individually. I don't
have the time or space to dive into
each of them. However, I do want to
challenge you to start thinking about
what happens when we make this leap
and, for example, 5G becomes available to everyone. When 5G is available,
we'll have super-fast connectivity. All
of our devices will come out of the
box ready to connect to the internet
- think cameras, doorbells, security
systems, even kitchen appliances.
All of those connected devices will
generate so much more data.
We'll have IoT and 5G creating
brand new data sets for which we'll
want to leverage analytics. Then we'll
be able to apply AI and ML to that data
so we can really understand what's
being generated from that data. When
all of these emerging technologies are
working together, that's when we'll
start to see real accelerations in the
technologies that are available today.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
So the next question is, when will this
convergence and acceleration happen?
It's hard to say, but we can talk a bit
about each technology and where it
stands right now.
■■5G. Right now, while 5G has all of the
promises in the world, it's not perfect.
Some areas of big cities have 5G,
and if you happen to be on the right
block, you can have an amazing 5G
experience. But two blocks away, you

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might have trouble connecting to a
cellular network at all. Some phones
may say they have a "type" of 5G, but
that's mostly a carrier marketing ploy.
The real 5G is still coming. When it
does, we'll see people truly being able
to work from anywhere.
■■RPA. We're seeing a lot of firms leverage RPA right now. It's so powerful, it
really breaks down the silos of data,
allowing us to integrate and automate
data and tasks. To take advantage
of RPA, your data can't be in a place
where it doesn't connect to other data.
You need to be able to access your
data and manipulate it to see what it
can do, and RPA is helping to connect
those different systems.
■■AI/ML. There's a lot of hype surrounding AI and ML. They're not
the same thing, although many
people use them interchangeably. AI
in the profession is still very much
aspirational, but machine learning
is widely available. Your firm should
start learning about these technologies and anticipating how you can put
them to work. It will take changing
your mindset to get the most from it!
■■Quantum computing. A lot of people
think quantum computing is still the
stuff of science fiction, but there are
many examples of it being used in the
real world. We're also starting to think
about using quantum computers
to crunch incredibly large amounts
of data, which means some of the
insights and analytics we have been
driving towards will be much easier
to get to.

■■Blockchain. Gartner predicts that
it will take three to five years for
blockchain to impact financial
institutions, but it is already affecting
the industries accounting firms serve.
I believe one day we will look
back on this time and realize that
COVID-19 was a catalyst to bring all
of these exponential technologies
into widespread use and convergence.
We're never looking back, and things
will just accelerate from here.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW
The people in your firm are busy handling the day-to-day work of keeping
the firm productive and profitable.
However, it's crucial to also spend
time thinking long term.
Daniel Burrus, the author of Flash
Foresight, has a saying: "Take your
biggest problem and skip it." Now is
the time to think about how these
technologies can help you jump over
the problems in your firm.
One example we've seen many
firms do is leverage RPA for their
e-filing acceptance. Firms have built
bots that monitor when an e-filed
return has been accepted. Then the
technology automatically updates
their workflow solution. Previously,
this was a task someone in their firm
had to do multiple times a day during
busy season. Being able to deploy a bot
to handle this time consuming and
monotonous task freed up admin time
to do higher level, more valuable work
for the firm.
Another firm found their admin
team was spending hours each week
creating WIP reports.
Marc Staut, Chief Innovation & Information Officer at Boomer Consulting, Inc.,
helps meet the growing needs of CPA
firms by leveraging his experience to
provide strategic technology assessments,
planning, visioning and coaching

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