Humans or Technology? Who wins the digital fight in the financial management community?

Date: August 16, 2019

In today’s world, technology is an ever growing, changing machine. What was once a dream, has become reality as, virtual assistants, spell checkers, and online GPS, are a constant part of our lives.

With the advancement of technology, such as automation, blockchain, robotics processing automation, and data analytics, some may view that machines will eventually replace humans in many jobs, especially in the federal financial management community. But, that does not seem to be the case.

In the federal government, Treasury’s vision for Federal Financial Management shares four common goals derived from the President’s Management Agenda -- a customer-centric perspective; the power of data; shared solutions; and elimination of low-value work. The only way this mission can be met is through humans and technology working together. At the heart of providing this service to the citizen, customer, and tax payer are the federal employees controlling the technology.

Agencies such as the National Science Foundation are putting robotics to work for accountants, streamlining the data systems, and reconciling records with other agencies. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission developed data analytics to set up forward funding models to reduce the risk of declining budgets impacting the services provided by the agency. The Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation (FIT) at Fiscal Service carried out a proof of concept to better understand if blockchain technology could improve the way Fiscal Service manages and tracks software licenses.

Although the technology is computing the data and doing the low-value work, it’s the employees’ wisdom that creates the customer-centric solution.

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