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According to the Digital Transformation Survey of 550 executives, 93% of business leaders are investing more in technology, but only 27% say their technology is fully aligned with business goals. While almost everyone is investing in technology initiatives, the resulting technology is often ill-suited to meet business needs. To fix that disconnect, companies must approach their tech strategy with discipline where AI, blockchain, quantum, and other digital transformation initiatives are in alignment customer needs that can convert technology investments into revenue growth.

Pressure is building for professional services firms to tackle industry trends head-on, including M&A strategy, technology adoption, tax considerations, and succession planning. Some are also rethinking fee structures and commoditizing service lines; others are restructuring their partnership agreements and expanding their global reach as part of improving their client experience and meeting expectations. Instead of simply reacting to megatrends, competitive organizations and future-focused firms are making changes.

Growth is at the top of the menu for finance leaders as Grant Thornton’s CFO survey shows that the uncertainty associated with the U.S. election in 2024 has given way to unrestrained optimism about the U.S. economy and meeting business goals. Other results from the survey were broadly aligned with high growth expectations—and with the transformation to an increasingly digital landscape that has been a focus for CFOs for the past few years. As CFOs look ahead, the environment appears to favor investment in growth.

Digital transformation is widely misunderstood as being primarily focused on digitizing existing processes, moving to the cloud, or enabling scalability of the business. While this was true historically, today digital transformation requires taking bold steps and deploying advanced technologies such as AI, machine learning, augmented reality, blockchain, and others to create innovative new products that can make new revenue streams possible.

Despite cybersecurity being noted as a top priority according to PwC’s 2024 Global Digital Trust Insights survey of 3,876 business and tech executives at the largest global companies, the actual progress on improving security is sluggish, even stagnant. By making one or two bold moves to put security at the epicenter of innovation, the top companies are positioning themselves for greater productivity and faster growth as they dive into new technologies with confidence that they are well protected.

While IT functions are playing a central role in today’s digital transformation, their future is uncertain with public cloud, everything-as-a-service (XaaS), AI, and other advancements making new demands of IT leaders and their teams. Looking at the challenges and impact of six trends on IT’s mission and value proposition in an AI-enabled world, it’s clear that a leap forward with digital transformation is required if IT wants to be a driving force behind the successful integration and application of technology to build innovative, resilient, sustainable, data-driven organizations.

More family offices are embracing emerging technologies to optimize their operations and prepare for future opportunities; however, success hinges on establishing a clear future-state vision, documenting business requirements, assembling the right team of people, and implementing the right technology solutions at the right time. It’s a digital transformation that uses a holistic approach to encourage stakeholder engagement and bring operational efficiencies and lasting value to the organization.

With the accelerated pace of technology advancements in addition to tax policy changes that require tax teams to synthesize immense amounts of data, tax departments must fully embrace technology to be able to deliver valuable insights and tax planning strategies. This Tax Innovation Guide outlines how to modernize and future-proof your tax practice to navigate the increasingly complicated web of tax laws and regulations, increase the tax department’s adaptability, and gain insights to inform and drive business strategy.