Many finance departments have been slow to adopt cloud solutions, but its transformative impact can no longer be ignored.
Many finance departments have been slow to adopt cloud solutions, but its transformative impact can no longer be ignored.
A recent global KPMG survey of nearly 800 technology industry leaders ranked cloud as the technology that will have the greatest impact in driving business transformation for enterprises.
Driven by the demand of speed, flexibility, scale and anywhere access, many consumers have fully embraced a cloud enabled world. And in business, more organisations are relying on cloud to achieve benefits that extend far beyond cost efficiency. Executives are increasingly realising that cloud can be a catalyst for process improvement as well as a driver of business transformation.
Today’s CFOs have a lot on their minds. Common themes and associated issues include:
Cost efficiencies
Enabling a mobile workforce
Leveraging data to provide insight
New Product Development / Innovation & faster time to market
New Business Models / Shift to Shared Service Models
At the same time as navigating these types of issues, many CFOs are looking to help their businesses expand. Gone are the days where finance chiefs were confined to simple accounting functions; today’s CFO are widely seen as strategic partners to the general business, and are expected to participate actively in its transformation.
Transforming current finance capabilities can be a long and costly journey often constrained by the organisation’s ERP system and with the final result unable to meet the demands of the business. Traditional transition programme often lasts between 14-18 months, is complex, often delivered late and over budget due to existing architectures hungry for heavy customisation and expensive ongoing upgrades.
The Cloud and SaaS Model
Cloud computing and in particular Software as a Service (SaaS), now offers an alternative to this scenario. Cloud puts business at the forefront of technological change where they can benefit from “The Internet of Things”.
The cloud is touted as a true catalyst and enabler of transformative actions, such as the creation of an innovative workforce, ensuring the success of a customer-centric approach and making data analytics possible – all significant opportunities for the business. Such a backdrop adds new scrutiny to finance organizations, which are now expected to contribute more to the overall strategic direction of the companies they serve.
The cloud offers a service model based on
It is therefore no surprise that organisations are increasingly adopting the Cloud to transform business capabilities. In a survey by Gartner, 51% of organisations are expected to use the Cloud to perform more than half of their transactions by 2016, rising to 81% in 2017 or later2 . Many CRM and HR applications are already on the cloud – and we believe finance is next. Indeed, our 2014 survey indicates how the above issues influence cloud adoption to support business transformation.
Please see the Powered Finance section for an overview of KPMG’s pre-built, next generation Finance operating model combining its know-how across finance, technology, tax, controls and audit, built on an Oracle cloud platform-based system.