As we come to the end of another year, this is a good opportunity to look ahead at the key trends to watch during 2024.

In previous blog posts, we have addressed the challenges and opportunities regarding digital transformation and the Digital Solutions Economy (DSE) across a range of industries including, software & SaaS, semiconductors, media & entertainment, medical devices, transportation, electronics manufacturing,  energy, and utilities.

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.