Not long ago, when you thought of a strategically "influential" area of a business, finance was not typically the first department that came to mind.

Time to think again.

Today, finance is playing a bigger role in the business than ever before. It's stepping up to provide valuable strategic insight and guidance, and developing new skills and tools to support rapid decision-making and performance management.

These new capabilities-and the organizational influence they drive-are among the hallmarks of the new "agile finance organization," according to research from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and Oracle.

In a sense, finance has no choice but to get more agile. Businesses today increasingly live in a cloud-powered digital world. Many tech companies, for example, are moving from selling hardware and software to selling "as-a-service" subscriptions. This business model change has forced finance to change the way it handles a host of processes, from revenue recognition to management reporting.

The same is happening in other industries. Our team at Deloitte recently met with the CFO of one of the world's top automakers, which is looking at launching a line of subscription-based products that will require many new financial capabilities. Deloitte calls this new trend "finance in a digital world."™