India’s financial sector is undergoing rapid expansion, and the focus must shift to upskilling talent for the future. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) estimates the country will require nearly 30 lakh chartered accountants to meet the increasing demands of a growing and complex economy.

The roots of the talent gap lie in both the shortage of new entrants and the struggle of existing professionals to keep pace with digital skills. Left unchecked, this imbalance could impede India’s ability to sustain financial resilience and transparency at scale. Compounding the issue is the perception of finance roles as being burdened with long hours, repetitive work, and slow adoption of modern tool factors that deter potential talent from pursuing long-term careers in the sector.

Modern automation and AI are emerging as key enablers to bridge this gap. 38% of attendees at BlackLine’s APAC Finance & Accounting landscape webinar identified process optimizations and automation as the most critical skills for finance professionals in 2025. About 32% highlighted strategic and business partnership capabilities as a close second.

Additionally, the NGO NASSCOM found that roughly 84% of companies that fully automated their invoice processes reported cost savings, while robotic process automation (RPA) in finance has helped cut down loan processing time by 45% in the banking sector.

What these advanced technological solutions provide is the opportunity to assign more tedious tasks to automation and AI, which can do them more efficiently and accurately, while freeing up people for higher-value, strategic tasks. This provides much needed reporting timeliness and strategic agility that is essential to get ahead in this digital economy.

Simply put, deploying modern automation frees F&A professionals from repetitive administrative tasks, allowing them to become a strategic partner for the business. Instead of only looking backwards, they can dedicate their expertise to strategic analysis and risk assessment, transforming financial data into predictive, real-time counsel.

Also Read: Finance Transformation: Driving Efficiency in FMCG and Cosmetics

The Strategic Imperative of Being F&A-First

In addition, modern financial automation platforms promote an F&A-first approach that pivots away from the mindset of treating its functions as secondary. Instead, it prioritizes F&A as a catalyst for broader transformation that focuses on productivity, accuracy, and efficiency.

By embedding automation and intelligence into core financial processes, these platforms elevate F&A from a back-office necessity to a forward-looking enabler of business performance.

This simultaneously enhances the value of F&A across the organization as a strategic partner to deliver real-time, actionable insights that drive confident decision-making. It takes transformation from piecemeal IT upgrades to a collaborative, company-wide effort to build robust, interconnected systems that are critical resilience in the long run.

Transformational Shifts in Finance & Accounting

It goes without saying that modern financial automation platforms can also be a catalyst for finance teams to navigate changes. Gone should be the days of chasing numbers across spreadsheets. With tools that consolidate fragmented data sources and automate routine labour-intensive tasks e.g. reconciliations, journal entries, and intercompany eliminations — processes become centralized and more streamlined. The resulting single source of truth enhances operational consistency and accelerates month-end and year-end close cycles.

Beyond time savings, automation also reduces the manual handling of data, minimizing the risk of human error and improving audit readiness. Finance leaders gain real-time visibility into the full financial landscape, empowering them to make more informed decisions, flag anomalies early, and maintain tighter control over compliance and governance requirements.

With this level of end-to-end automation, finance teams can shift focus from transactional work to strategic analysis. That will support business growth, home in on cost-saving opportunities, and provide sharper insights to the C-suite.

Also Read: How Technology is Shaping Customer Experience in Indian Banks

Boosting Resilience in Lean F&A Teams

The F&A first approach to digital transformation powered by robust modern solutions, such as advanced, AI-powered financial close and consolidation tools and accounting platforms, is beneficial to lean finance teams. It helps them be more efficient and productive and is particularly useful in mitigating the impact of the ongoing talent crunch. Advanced solutions can help secure operational continuity even when teams are operating on a skeleton crew.

Intelligent automation also affords F&A professionals more freedom to engage in strategic roles, which can be enticing from a talent acquisition perspective. The F&A roles become more enticing for new talent and reduce the risk of burnout among existing teams.

From the executive perspective, taking on an F&A-first approach with advanced automation is a necessary and efficient move by CFOs. It is a critical strategic investment into an organization’s resilience while positioning finance as a key driver of success in this highly competitive environment constrained by lack of talent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Mac Weaver, SVP & GM - Driving Revenue & Business Predictability at BlackLine, is an APAC General Manager overseeing revenue, P&L, partnerships, channels/alliances, personnel, and regional strategy execution. A key member of the corporate operating committee, driving enterprise-wide decisions. Proven expertise in aligning strategy, relationships, technical knowledge, and business acumen to forge successful partnerships with the world's great brands. Dedicated leader who coaches and mentors teams while establishing predictable business outcomes across all segments.