More than 1,000 CFOs or financial controllers of large organisations with revenue greater than $500m (£386m) across 25 countries participated in the annual global survey.

The results show only 58% of finance leaders say that businesses are highly trusted by the public, with transparency in reporting being a key driver to gain trust. Regionally, respondents in Japan are slightly more bullish (68%) than their counterparts in the Americas (63%), Asia-Pacific (59%) and Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA) (55%).

Reporting nonfinancial data is gaining prominence with 72% of finance leaders indicating that nonfinancial information is being increasingly used in investors’ decision-making.

Peter Wollmert, EY Global and EY EMEIA financial accounting and advisory services (FAAS) leader, said: ‘The public’s weak trust levels in business are reinforced by the disconnect between the reporting agenda of corporates and the public’s agenda.

‘Too often, reporting fails to capture nonfinancial information as drivers of organisational performance, leaving investors denied an opportunity to fully understand the business’ future potential for long-term value creation and its intangible assets.

‘Therefore, organisations must account for and explain performance much more clearly, coherently and transparently, and manage nonfinancial information with the same rigour and assurance as financial information.’

However, the survey also showed many organisations are overwhelmed by the amount and variety of data they can now access, and 49% reported they spend more time gathering and processing data than analysing it.

As a result, AI will be the most important technology in five years’ time according to 44% of respondents, followed by robotic process automation (RPA) (32%) and tools based on blockchain (24%). However, data risk remains the number one challenge facing corporate reporting teams, with 54% citing it a top concern.

Wollmert said: ‘Automation will help finance teams to drive new levels of operational agility and give them freedom to focus on generating insights, while AI will harness underlying patters in that data with machine learning helping to predict scenarios and improve results. Blockchain will contribute to building trust by creating a secure audit trail of each and every transaction.’

Adopting new technology will call for different kinds of employees, and 79% of respondents said that there is an urgent need for finance to recruit new skills, while 76% highlighted an urgent need to recruit talent with nontraditional backgrounds, and 72% identified AI skills as the most vital. However, nearly two-thirds (63%) of finance leaders say that resistance and cultural differences within teams are barriers to digital innovation.

EY Financial Accounting and Advisory Services (FAAS) fifth annual survey, How can the digital transformation of reporting build the bridge between trust and long-term value? is here

Report by Pat Sweet