What’s now and next for Finance and Procurement

Automation, digitisation and the future of global trade

Add bookmark

This 2019 report, carried out by The Economist Intelligent Unit, surveyed over 400 senior contacts within Finance and Procurement to find out what they thought were the key and current trends happening in their industry that they should prepare for. 

Key findings include:

  • Expectation that automation would be the driver to free up time required to adapt and play a role more focused on strategic initiatives​
  • Automation of payments, procurement processes and supply chain management will supersede AI as having the greatest impact on an organization. ​
  • Just over 60% of respondents believe that their finance and procurement functions are prepared for the impacts of digitisation within the next 18 months​
  • Almost 25% of respondents cited post-Brexit trade negotiations and US/China relations as the trend expected to have the greatest impact within the next two years.​

Download the report here.


Latest Webinars

The Unstoppable Momentum of Deductions and Disputes: Using Agentic AI to Stem the Rising Tide

2026-12-08

10:00 AM - 10:45 AM EST

Deductions and disputes are fast becoming one of the biggest sources of revenue leakage in order-to-...

When AI Does the Work: Designing the New Human + AI Operating Model for Accounts Payable

2026-12-02

10:00 AM - 10:45 AM PST

AI is moving beyond helping AP teams process work faster. Increasingly, intelligent systems can exec...

Beyond the Pilot: What It Really Takes to Build an AI-Ready Enterprise in BFSI

2026-12-02

12:00 PM - 12:45 PM EST

Discover how BFSI leaders are moving beyond AI pilots to scale AI enterprise-wide through stronger g...

Recommended