When Simon Lesch, APAC AI and transformation lead at Archetype, speaks with finance teams about how they use digital tools, he hears a familiar story: organisations are not short on technology, they are just trying to determine which tools add value and how they should work together.
The issue often is not access, it is more about capability and understanding what is possible, he says. “There is no shortage of options, and each promises to solve everything. But if people are not trained to use the full capabilities of a platform, or key features are not enabled, they quickly become overwhelmed and organisations fail to realise the full value of their investment.”
While most professionals are digitally literate, true digital fluency comes from understanding how systems connect and using that insight to build smarter, more efficient workflows. In many organisations, the technology stack is doing its job, but the gap lies in integration, where manual processes continue to bridge systems that do not naturally align.
Tyler Wise FCPA, partner at Findex and a member of CPA Australia’s Digital Transformation Centre of Excellence, sees the same pattern.
“The tools are already there: spreadsheets, dashboards and reporting platforms. Yet in many organisations, they are used in isolation and are patched together by manual steps, workarounds and duplicated effort,” he says.
The issue, Wise argues, is not basic capability, but the gap between knowing how to use tools and using them well together. It is the difference between being digitally literate and fluent, he adds.
“Digital fluency is about understanding how systems fit together and using that to design workflows that are connected, automated and scalable,” he says. “More broadly, it is the ability to lead how technology is applied and to embed that thinking across an organisation.”