XBRL® For Dummies®

Chapter 8. Seeing the Transformation of Business Information Exchange

In This Chapter

• Looking at transformational technologies

• Predicting impact from clues offered by other transformations

• Gaining insight from regulatory reporting and financial reporting changes

• Creating your own transformation

This chapter is about peering into the future as best we can, based the past. The purpose is to help you plan your future. Predictions are never perfect, but they can be useful in understanding what something is, what it isn't, and how it may impact you. Looking at changes that have occurred in other industries can also provide clues to changes in your own industry. This process reveals clues as to what the future might hold and help you plan for that future by helping you see opportunities and fend off potential threats.

This chapter is also a visionary look into the future of business reporting and XBRL. We look at changes that are already occurring in regulatory reporting and financial reporting and extrapolate from those clues to help you see the broader changes that are likely to occur in business information exchange in general.

A Transformation Will Occur

The global consultancy firm Gartner classified XBRL as a transformational technology. Gartner defines transformational as something that "enables new ways of doing business across industries that will result in major shifts in industry dynamics." Major shifts mean lots of change and some winners and some losers.

Accounting Today, in its September ...