Read any overview of how the finance and accounting function is changing, and you will notice several common themes. Three of the most important of these are: cloud migration, data standardization, and interoperability. The aim of technology in finance is to remove friction. With cloud migration that means making upgrades, licensing, procurement and maintenance simpler with software-as-a-service (SaaS) models.

Despite the challenges of the past two years, I’ve been speaking regularly on AI and the future of the human-machine relationship. Often I’ve done it thanks only to some of those machines, using remote tech that was previously seen as a gimmick, a convenience, or an annoyance. When pushed by a crisis, it’s remarkable what we can accomplish.

ETL is an acronym for Extract, Transform and Load. It refers to a process of extracting data from one system and transforming it so that it can be loaded into another system. It is the process that lets businesses amass large amounts of data in data warehouses that they can use for business operations. Reverse ETL is a term used when the data is pushed from the warehouse to the CRM. This process seems simple, but there are many pitfalls that can come up during this phase.

An application programming interface (API) value chain connects you to your customers through a series of partners. Unlike browser-based web apps where your customers buy goods or services directly from your website. APIs are a vital component of your digital business strategy. They help you analyze data and enable a multi-cloud strategy that can dramatically accelerate your time-to-market. Once you know how to create API value chains, you can implement them right away.

If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one to hear it… well, it's very hard to use that tree in your corporate decision-making. KPIs (key performance indicators) are the metrics that tell you how well you're performing against certain key strategic targets. Ongoing KPI reporting gives you a clear and consistent view into your company’s performance in the areas that matter most.

The word “trust” is simply not in the cybersecurity solution providers’ vocabulary. They trust no one and nothing. They develop Zero Trust network architectures to protect clients against external attacks, insider threats, and inadvertent errors that could impact security. And they’re always on the lookout for emerging vulnerabilities across internal and external networks. Trust is a luxury they can’t afford to have — or can they?

Quality Assurance (QA) is a typical process for ensuring that the end product of any Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) corresponds to the overall and scope-agreed-upon objectives. Historically, quality assurance (QA) testing has been introduced rather late in the software development cycle. In a Waterfall process, for example, the software is created and then sent along to the QA team, which provides input and then sends the program back to the development team to be fixed.

Will your software perform well during peak hours? Can it handle the load during sales periods? Is your infrastructure valid if you double your sales by the end of the year? These are just some of the questions that scalability testing can help you answer. Scalability testing evaluates the activity level of your application by upscaling and downscaling the number of users.

This blog post is a summary of my talk at the iOS Singapore Conference 2022 about scaling up iOS automated tests using fastlane and other tools.

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