ThinkTWENTY20

By John McAlister and Shelley Thomson

There is no doubt the accounting industry has been in a constant state of disruption for more than a decade. As a result, there’s a good chance you have responded in one of the following ways…

• It's a buzz word, it's not real, and eventually, the talk will fade;
• It’s the new way of life;
• I'll ignore it, and it will go away;
• I’m terrified and don’t know what to do to keep up;
• I’m excited about the challenges ahead;
• It will never affect me;

These are all common reactions that you might also feel regularly, and perhaps many more.

The world was moving towards edge computing before the pandemic struck. In bare bones terms, edge computing involves moving the data and processing closer to the end user.

With the pandemic, companies began moving their personnel offsite, mostly to their homes. They have had to begin addressing the challenges this movement raised, including security and privacy issues.

But also, with their people physically spread out, it became apparent that edge computing had a new relevance, especially considering the already fast-moving trend towards using big data, advanced analytics, and AI. 

“As the world moves into the fourth industrial revolution, the requirement for high-speed connectivity, real-time data processing and analytics will be increasingly important for business and society. With the combined IoT market size projected to reach $520 billion by 2021, the development of edge computing solutions alongside 5G networks will be required to provide near-instantaneous network speed and to underpin computational platforms close to where data is created.”[1]

The confluence of these trends means that the computing platforms are faced with an unprecedented degree of change over the next months and years.

[1] http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/25261-Edge-Computing-Set-to-Push-Security-to-the-Brink.html

In a recent project, I explored the use of the internet for corporate reporting from its beginnings with the start of the World Wide Web up to the present, a period of approximately twenty-five years. Numerous changes have taken place during that period, some of which relate to the technology and others that relate to the changing business and reporting environment.