Most of us have encountered situations that call for turning to specialists with deep expertise in a specific area whenever it is critical for our health or safety.

For example, if tests conducted by your primary physician show problems with your heart, you'd expect a referral to a cardiologist rather than having your general practitioner do surgery in their office.  Or if the construction of your dream home encounters issues with soil stability in an earthquake prone area, your general contractor can be expected to bring in a trained geological specialist to deal with the situation. 

In business, the same concept holds true; especially for situations such as optimizing revenue recognition and reporting compliance for subscription-based product and service offerings, which often include complex entitlements, usage-based scenarios, bundled elements, and/or dynamic, on-the-fly, customer-driven changes within the end-to-end Quote-to-Cash process.

Driven by sweeping changes such as digital transformation, globalization of markets, the subscription-based Digital Solutions Economy™ (DSE), carbon-accounting mandates, a rising emphasis on artificial intelligence, and other disruptive trends, the role of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is undergoing radical transformation too.

This new blog post in our ongoing series about the Digital Solutions Economy™ (DSE) looks at how new developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are impacting the ways that companies deploy and manage subscription-based, usage-based, entitlements, ratable, bundled, and other DSE offerings.

Over the past eight years, many episodes in this blog series have focused on revenue recognition and how SAP solutions such as Revenue Accounting and Reporting (RAR) have provided a robust foundation for compliance with ASC 606 and IFRS 15. The evolution of SAP RAR and overall Automated Revenue Management (ARM) capabilities has unfolded along multiple paths to support existing users while also establishing a forward roadmap to some signficant new capabilities in SAP Public Cloud deployments.

Previous posts in this blog series on the Digital Solutions Economy (DSE) have explored a wide range of issues and solutions as well as deeper dives into DSE implementation in specific industries.  In this latest post, we take a look at data security, privacy protections, and overall cybersecurity issues, which impact all companies, especially those that are implementing new DSE programs.

A previous episode in this blog series gave an overview of How the Digital Solutions Economy (DSE) is Impacting the Medical Device Industry. This new post provides a deeper look at how the leasing of medical equipment along with other bundled services or products presents particular challenges for meshing contracts and lessor accounting with DSE management and revenue recognition.

Previous posts in this blog series on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and carbon accounting have spotlighted carbon accounting as a trend to watch, looked at ESG impacts on M&A, and tracked the emergence of new ESG standards.

As we reach the halfway point in 2023, it is a good opportunity to take another look at over-arching trends, both to update those we have already identified and to add some new ones, such as the unprecedented explosion in generative AI applications.

Several times in the past, this blog series has focused on various big picture issues regarding environmental, social and governance (ESG) programs, compliance and carbon accounting solutions.

The Bramasol team at SAP Sapphire all agreed that it was one of the best events we've attended in quite a while, with lots of opportunities for deep engagement with SAP experts. We also met with many forward-looking companies seeking to accelerate their digital transformation roadmaps, launch new Digital Solutions Economy™ offerings, and/or optimize their compliance programs.