What do you think of when you think about the information technology (IT) at today’s leading retailers?
Point of sale systems. Ecommerce sites. Supply chain logistics. Real-time data collection and analysis.
All of these areas are ripe for transformation, as retailers struggle to survive in an Amazoned world.
However, if you you look across all of the operations of any global retailer, one of its most complex functions is hidden from view.
Tax.
Retailers’ tax function is so complex because it is so multifaceted: from sales and VAT tax calculations at the point of sale to tax reporting for shareholders to integrating tax functions of acquired companies to calculating income, property, and other taxes, tax challenges are inherently diverse and dynamic.
I spoke with the Director Global Technology of Tax Transformation at a brand-name global retailer. His communications department withheld permission to name him or his employer, so I’ll call him John Smith. Smith has been at the retailer for less than a year after spending 18 of his 20 years at a large consulting firm as Director of Tax Technology and Analytics.
According to Smith, the retailer’s tax transformation initiative is a strategic initiative. “We’re revamping the entire tax function with an emphasis on digital and doing more with less,” Smith explained.
Smith has his work cut out for him. “We were looking at three areas: people, structure, and technology,” Smith said. “Within technology, it was automation, analytics, and tax calculation. All three are interconnected.”
Some parts of the tax challenge touch customers directly. “Tax touches all parts of the company, like it or not,” Smith said, “right down to the receipt. For example, we need to know the diameter of a tire in order to calculate its sales tax properly.”
In other cases, the retailer’s tax challenges are global. “For example, the effective tax rate that goes in the shareholder report,” Smith adds. “It’s a combined number, calculated for the whole company globally. It’s the number shareholders look at.”
Calculating such a number is no mean feat, as it requires both analytics and workflow automation. “You also have to know you’ve collected the right data,” Smith said. “We want to consolidate data stores to make the company more data-centric.”
Read the entire article at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2018/12/11/why-low-code-is-the-secret-to-enterprise-tax-transformation/.
Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, AgilePoint and Appian are current Intellyx customers, and SAP is a former Intellyx customer. None of the other organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Public domain, courtesy of the New York Public Library.
