Leading members of the finance industry explain how businesses can transform and maintain performance levels through the pandemic. Financial leaders are playing a vital role in managing businesses through the pandemic and associated economic challenges. A recent study by CFO Research combined with FTI Consulting interviewed 325 chief financial officers and senior executives to get a better understanding of how finance is supporting and driving business value. The results presented five core themes:- 

-The work of CFO’s during the pandemic has shown what impact financial leaders can have on the wider business strategy. Covid-19 has emphasised the ability of financial leaders to manage what is often an overlooked part of a business: corporate scenario planning. 

-With significant changes to the economy, CFOs have managed to maintain productivity via remote teams. The survey indicated that over 70% of finance professionals worked in a remote workforce model. 

-continues to progress and while many CFOs are adapting and utilising automation tools, the survey indicated that automation is yet to reach its full potential in many businesses. The general corporate finance service delivery model is transforming. Over 40% of the respondents stated that their finance work was performed by a shared services organisation, nearly 50% said they used business process outsourcing or alternative hybrid models. Looking to the future, CFO’s are in a position to manage lead strategies and value development of a business. Finance has the capability of delivering insights on predictable measures in a volatile market, a vital asset in helping a business determine the cost, risk, working capital and overall capital structure. 

CFOs transforming into strategic leaders During the pandemic, CFOs have demonstrated the potential to generate models based on various scenarios, the ability to transform, make informed decisions and most importantly, lead their business through the pandemic. Respondents of the survey indicated that finance executives view their CFOs as vital members of strategic leadership, planning, analysis, technology and automation and detecting risks. Approximately 90% of respondents indicated that their CFO’s core functions include:-

Overwhelmingly, the surveyed finance executives portrayed their chief financial officers and finance teams as rising to the task across the domains of strategic leadership, planning and analysis, use of technology and automation, and identifying risks. More than nine out of every 10 of the survey respondents said their CFO and finance functions: 

-Important roles in guiding the overall strategy, making key operational decisions and supporting enterprise values across the entire business. 

-Driving value by detecting areas and leading plans to reduce and optimise business costs. 

-Applying innovative technologies i.e. predictive analytics and automation to generate accurate and relevant information. 

Remote working 

As with all business leaders, CFOs needed to adapt to remote working conditions, the cultural changes and the overall talent challenges. The survey findings suggested that CFOs were well prepared with automated-driven tools and were capable of responding quickly to specific priorities, processes and the preservation of talent and culture in the business. 

The main priority for CFOs in regards to the pandemic was enabling a remote workforce, according to the survey results. Over 40% of the respondents stated that finance teams adopted a remote working system, with nearly 30% transitioning to predominantly working remotely. The challenges from this transformation included the implications on cost management, financial planning, analysis, budgeting and forecasting (40%). Over 40% of the respondents claimed that risk management, working capital management, adopting new technology, and accounting and financial reporting were largely impacted. 

Automated Technology CFOs have progressed in regards to applying robotic process automation to specific finance functions, but there are still opportunities to enhance this further. Most CFOs have adopted automation to a certain level, with nearly 80% of the respondents indicating that at least one of the members of their finance team was ‘virtual’ i.e. they were using RPA and other automation tools. The survey findings indicated that for smaller businesses, the number of virtual workers was significantly smaller, suggesting that automation hasn’t reached its full potential in many businesses. Over 50% of finance executives indicated that eliminating and automating manual tasks was a top priority. Cost containment continues to be a key concern for CFOs. Over 30% of respondents stated that they intended to increase the use of captive shared services, BPO, GBS or an alternative hybrid model to utilise cost models during a disruptive business environment. For many senior finance executives, the CFO is regarded as a finance and accounting leader. The survey highlighted that finance professionals also regard CFOs as a business leader, value creator and someone who drives efficiency and effectiveness within a business. Nearly 90% of the respondents indicated that the CFO had the talent and expertise to enhance enterprise value for the business. In the short term, CFOs have proven how a business can survive during the initial phases of the pandemic. In regards to the long term, CFOs will examine initiatives that focus on cost savings. Finance executives believe that improving planning, scenario modelling and forecasting are top priorities for CFOs over the coming year or so. To achieve these strategic goals, over 80% of the respondents believed this required evaluating, implementing or focusing on existing planning, forecasting and budgeting technologies.

The launch of a recent partnership between Google Cloud and Anaplan will enable an expanded availability of high performance, global, scalable infrastructure.

Google Cloud and Anaplan confirmed the joint partnership to enable Anaplan’s platform for enterprise planning combined with business performance on Google Cloud. Representing the first public cloud offering for Anaplan, the partnership will deliver additional intelligence, variations and scalability for customers looking to solve complicated business problems and combine business and operational strategies with their financial outcomes. Being an Anaplan customer since 2016, Google has deployed the platform on Google Cloud in a number of scenarios in sales, supply chain and finance.

Transforming enterprise planning in the cloud

Through the new agreement, global businesses can utilise the leading expertise of Anaplan’s in-memory, Hyperblock calculation engine system operating on Google Cloud’s worldwide, high-performance secure infrastructure. Furthermore, the partnership will allow Anaplan to enhance its global reach, enabling customers to benefit from using Anaplan at closer proximities to their operations and with a wider choice of options to comply with regional and industry-related data requirements. 

In order to enhance decision making and planning, Google Cloud and Anaplan, combined with other service partners, offer an extended platform for data storage and analytics, utilising BigQuery and Google Cloud’s AI/ML capabilities. The combination of these features will allow businesses to combine ‘first-party’ data from Anaplan with third-party data sources, delivering intelligent, real-time modelling of large volumes of important data and generating valuable insights for business.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud explains that they are committed to supporting businesses in enhancing and accelerating critical operational procedures. Kurian states that the partnership with Anaplan delivers highly effective infrastructure and intelligent innovation to enterprise planning, supporting organisations in making better business decisions.

Frank Calderoni, Chairman and CEO of Anaplan states that his business is dedicated to helping business leaders implement the right actions, while at the same time building for the future. Calderoni explains this is why they took the decision to extend Anaplan to run on Google Cloud and accelerate their customers’ digital transformation journey to the cloud.

Global integrator partners include Deloitte, Slalom, Wipro and others manage a number of the world’s biggest enterprise-scale deployments at Anaplan. The partners involved will support customers on migrating to Anaplan running on Google Cloud and will deliver innovative solutions to leverage Anaplan, BigQuery and the AI & ML services available with Google Cloud.

Tom Galizia, the Principal of Deloitte Consulting explains that they have the first-hand experience of the client value that Anaplan and Google Cloud can deliver by combining real-time analytics and enterprise and planning and operations management. Galizia states that with Anaplan on Google Cloud, there is a great opportunity to bring a flexible and functional number of solutions capable of delivering intelligence and agility that is required for customers to make informed decisions.

Google uses the Anaplan platform to develop business performance on a larger scale across various business units. Google has introduced Anaplan across a range of business scenarios including financial planning, supply, sales and operational planning. Under the new partnership, Anaplan has migrated nearly all of Google’s Anaplan use cases to operate on Google Cloud. The work with Google clearly shows the number of benefits that businesses can expect from Anaplan moving onto Google Cloud, including wider global reach and additional real-time insights into data from Anaplan and other third-party sources.

Finance companies today are required to maintain high compliance levels and be capable of generating world-class services to their customers. Industry experts are now suggesting that the hybrid cloud has provided a platform for finance professionals to deliver a sustainable and profitable future.

The finance market includes a number of new technologies. The rise of security concerns, data privacy and compliance have all affected the cloud systems that banks and other financial organisations have developed. Research provided by the IBM Institute for Business Value reported that during 2019, the banking industry investment in cloud services is forecasted to hit $100 billion (USD). IBM believes that the cloud has become an essential part of progression in banking. IBM identifies six vital attributes including cost flexibility, scale, market flexibility, hidden complexity, variation and ecosystem connection all influence the efficiency levels but also are directly connected to business transformation and revenue change.

The integration of a hybrid cloud strategy has been relatively slow, driven by security concerns and a potential loss of data control. Reports, however, suggest this is changing, with a study by Nutanix stating that the financial industry is ahead of other sectors in terms of integrating hybrid cloud.

Chris Kozup, the SVP of Global Marketing at Nutanix explains that rising competition, along with higher security risks and emerging regulations will mean the industry needs to focus on enhancing IT infrastructure. Kozup states that the higher than industry average adoption of hybrid cloud indicates that financial businesses understand the benefits of hybrid cloud systems and their impact on agility, security and overall performance.

As FinTech continues to transform the industry, financial services that utilise the hybrid cloud will be competitive and enable further innovation. John Van Decker, the VP of Gartner explains that studies indicate that over 90% of enterprises believe the cloud can be used for over half of business transactions in the near future. Van Decker believes that the cloud has dramatically changed the shape for financial business applications, highlighting that many vendors have updated their platforms in the cloud and many have reduced their on-premise solutions and replaced it with more profitable cloud implementations.

Dr. Richard Harmon, Director at Cloudera states that open banking is enabling FinTechs to collaborate with financial organisations, providing and delivering innovative products and services that customers want. Harmon believes a hybrid, multi-cloud infrastructure has become the perfect area for businesses to tackle some of the most challenging data and analytic issues in the industry. Harmon states that some of the biggest FinTech businesses are capable of using the hybrid cloud to generate core services within data engineering, data warehousing and data science. 

Safra Catz, the CEO of Oracle has stated that she believes that the future of cloud for enterprises lies with autonomous systems and Oracle is planning to integrate all of its products on one cloud infrastructure system.

Autonomous systems provide the benefit of eliminating human errors and ensuring data is kept safe.

At the Oracle OpenWorld 2019 conference, the CEO stated that Oracle Cloud had created a new phase of integration for customers worldwide. Catz explained that Oracle is predominantly focused on users and believes the future for enterprises involves autonomous systems and that they are working together with their customers to provide the highest level of value. Catz reinforced the statement made by Oracle co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison in that autonomous systems remove potential human errors and keep data safe.

Highlighting its strong position and vision within the cloud ERP market, Oracle also confirmed a series of updates to the Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cloud and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud. The latest updates will allow businesses of any size to boost their productivity, decrease costs and enhance controls by delivering product innovations and sector solutions.

Rondy Ng, the Senior Vice President of Oracle Applications Development recently stated that Oracle continues to reinforce its leading position within the Cloud ERP market with a series of innovative developments, supporting the continued changing demands within finance and operations teams. Ng believes that by combining intelligent systems and machine learning tools with Oracle ERP Cloud will allow customers to minimise the number of standard tasks performed by employees.

In order to ensure businesses and customer interaction is data-driven, Oracle released a number of data-focused updates within the Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud. Oracle CX offers a range of applications within marketing, sales, services, and commerce. Rob Tarkoff, the executive vice president at Oracle CX Cloud and Oracle Data Cloud explains that the latest updates are driven by data and machine learning and are focused on ensuring customers can take advantage of data insights in order to meet customer requirements, creating the best customer experience.

Oracle also launched new updates to the enterprise-level customer data management platform (CDP). The new updates to Oracle CX Unity will allow businesses to offer personalised and detailed experiences within all customer interactions, including website visits through to in-store purchases.

The new platform will support businesses in developing their digital systems beyond cloud migration to generate a simplistic set of business activities driven by digital transformation.

Deloitte confirmed the release of Deloitte Ascend at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, explaining the product to be a ‘pre-configured digital accelerator’ developed on their cloud platform and focused on supporting business innovation, accelerating overall performance and creating enterprise digital transformation.

The Deloitte Ascend product is focused for clients seeking to migrate from on-site systems towards Oracle Cloud Applications. According to Deloitte, the system can be applied at any stage of the digital journey. Deloitte Ascend supports clients with the following:-

-Streamlining business activities by improving the overall delivery of Clean Core supported by Oracle Cloud. 

-Automating activities like data migration, configuration, testing and coding migrations.

-Simplifying essential business activities that span across multiple industries and at the same time, enhance efficiencies with a range of digital activities and utilising cases created by Oracle Cloud and other digital systems.

Mark Walsh, Principal and Enterprise Performance Portfolio Leader at Deloitte Consulting highlights that in our connected world today, it isn’t enough for businesses to just migrate to a cloud system. Walsh explains that Deloitte Ascend combines leading industry processes and a number of digitally created insights with their award-winning Oracle Cloud platform, enabling clients to deliver innovative levels of performance for their business.

At the very heart of Deloitte Ascend is a digital transformative framework and a system with analytical focus combined with a number of digital project assets. The framework provides supports businesses with measuring their overall digital capabilities, to draw out their digital transformation path and to develop a platform that enables them to utilise their competitive advantage over other businesses.

The Ascend platform also provides a number of interactive Oracle Digital Experience Labs which provide a detailed experience, using Oracle Cloud and digital technologies to perform vital business processes via real-time configuration and data. The labs aim to support the digital goals of clients by displaying how to reach individual process can be streamlined and made simpler with digital technology.

Dave Donatelli, the executive VP of Cloud Business Group at Oracle emphasises that Deloitte has a proven track record of supporting businesses with driving value by using Oracle Cloud Applications. Donatelli believes Deloitte Ascend will support the planning and promotion of the digital transformation process, enabling customers to take advantage of everything the Oracle Cloud platform provides.

Businesses across the UK will soon be able to utilise a significant boost in cloud computing as Oracle and Microsoft confirmed they would launch multi-cloud capacity services to London.

Leading technology players have announced that customers in London will be able to interconnect Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for the first time as they plan to increase multi-cloud services worldwide. Microsoft and Oracle confirmed their multicloud partnership just a few months ago after a number of customers were seeking to work within both platforms.

Oracle recently stated that London was one of the highest and active Oracle Cloud regions and explained that their latest announcement would enable customers in the London area to access more services than previously offered.

The London announcement represents the first expansion outside of the US for the Microsoft-Oracle collaboration. Interconnected cloud regions will enable conditions for less latency, resulting in higher data transfer levels and improved application interaction speeds within the cloud.

Oracle confirmed that the partnership would enable a wider range of customers across London to launch innovative new solutions for their business systems. Oracle highlighted that the service will provide customers with a diverse range of new services in Azure, which can be used within the cloud.

Leading global analyst provider Gartner has recently confirmed the release of it’s latest Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions.

Analytics remains a vital element of new software technology, particularly within the last year. Gartner believes that automation will be the main driver for new product purchases over the next year within business intelligence and analytics, including data science and embedded BI. Gartner has also forecast that nearly half of all analytic queries to be performed via search, automation, voice or natural language.

The rise of natural language and conversation analytics will generate a new wave of technology users within the BI and Analytical arena. It is due to this uptake that Gartner believes we will experience a rise of nearly 15% of these tools in enterprises, with significant growth of data and analytics users within businesses. Analysts at Gartner also believe that this rate of growth will stimulate other innovative businesses to modify their business models.

The latest Gartner report outlines of the development of ‘modern’ analytics and business intelligence tools over the last few years. Traditional platforms are being transformed by the development of augmented analytics and machine learning, as well as the rise of visual-based data system providers. Gartner states that those leading the natural language processing arena are more likely to be capable of setting a higher pricing level for their products compared to their competitors.

In their latest Magic Quadrant, Gartner summarises the overall strengths and weaknesses of over 20 key providers, regarded as the most significant within their market. Gartner provides a graphical representation of vendor performance based on their overall ability to execute and their ability to reach their overall vision. The graph is split into four quadrants: nice players, challengers, visionaries, and leaders. 

Based on last year, Microsoft and Tableau were regarded as market leaders in this space. This year, Gartner has placed Microsoft in a more commanding lead, improving its position on the ‘ability to execute’ section of the Gartner graph. Microsoft provides excellent functions, especially for its price, enabling users to perform detailed analysis relatively easily. Gartner believes that Microsoft will remain a leader for some years to come. Tableau, however, has recently announced new natural language processing and automated data management services which strengthen its portfolio further.

Qlik maintained its leadership status based on Gartner’s definition of consisting of a strong product roadmap and its global reach compared to other competitors. Other mentioned businesses include ThoughSpot, a business that is leading the augmented analytics industry. The business raised nearly $150 million in new venture capital and released ThoughtSpot5 last year, containing its innovative voice-driven analytics systems referred to as SearchIQ.

In terms of challenges, Gartner highlight Microstrategy as a key business. The company has invested heavily in augmented analytic services and has received high customer scores based on its range of product capabilities. The system also enables detailed analysis of large data sets and recently launched a new offering which it describes as a ‘new class of enterprise intelligence’, known as HyperIntelligence.

WIthin the Visionaries section, Gartner highlight TIBCO Software, Sisense, and Salesforce as nearly equal leaders and all having the potential to be the leader in 2020. Gartner suggests that TIBCO showed the most improvement in the last year due to a number of recent acquisitions which have enabled them to expand their offering in data science and management. The business also improved its embedded analytics product and launched a new AI analytical tool known as Spotfire X. Sisense raises dits funding to $200 million showing its interest in acquiring enterprise-level customers. The business has emphasized its focus on machine learning and launched a new Data Cognition Engine that can understand large data volumes and can produce nearly instant analytical responses.

Within the Niche Players, this year are more traditional BI providers such as Oracle, IBM, and Board International, as well as more specialist embedded analytical providers like Logi Analytics and GoodData. One business, in particular, Looker, gained the highest increase within this section, ending the year with a growth funding round valued at $100 million. The business also released new integrations for data science workflows and new developer tools in Looker 6, as well as integration with Google BigQuery.

Technology is rapidly changing how organizations do business. Finance teams, in particular, are being transformed from focusing on traditional paperwork activities to effectively automating processes such as invoicing, workflow and data analytics. Technology has created an efficient automated strategy, enabling finance teams to harness the true potential of their workforce and strengthen their contribution towards their business.

At first, technology was perceived as a potential threat to employment and job availability. In reality, as technology and the digital era has emerged even further, technology has proven to provide wider opportunities and empowered businesses, accelerating overall company development. Streamlining basic and tedious activities with automated software means the lengthy tasks of data entry and spreadsheet management, which commonly result in errors, are being completed in a matter of minutes.

This is a significant change for finance professionals, allowing CFOs and other financial members to have more influence over their entire businesses. Instead of spending time on paperwork, finance employees are capable of moving into a more strategic position, exploring new opportunities and creating real value for their company. Automation has also provided more control and visibility of data and other records for finance professionals.

The development of innovative analytical models allows finance teams to carefully measure and manage overall performance, as well as identify trends or potential errors that previously would have been overlooked. All of these factors create added value, supporting their business in making complex decisions and generating more accountability within the entire business. According to the Finance 2020 report by Accenture, Finance is now creating things it could never do before due to progression in digital technology. Finance has transformed from a traditional spreadsheet-focused accounting and reporting hub, into a sophisticated predictive analytical system providing real value for a business. It comes as no real surprise that automation technology is expected to expand further within finance over the coming years. A 2016 EY survey of finance professionals suggested that 65% believed automating processes would become a significant factor for future financial organizations.

IT Pro Portal has created several steps they believe finance leaders should be considering to develop an automation strategy and reshape their role within their entire business.

Defining your overall proposition, what you want your team to deliver and how you intend to add value to the business. How do these changes impact your team’s function and existing work?

Defining your team and its capabilities – What can be changed to deliver business value and what can you transform through automation.
Considering your team and overall structure – where should automation technology be applied to reduce certain individual tasks, enabling additional time for people to develop new skills.

Developing your automation plan – work with your team and the business to confirm what processes need to be automated to meet your goal. Identify areas where automation will reduce errors, significantly free up time for employees and add value elsewhere, as well as generate higher levels of data analysis.

Create a testing framework – testing automation plays a crucial part in the success and failure of an automation project. Within the testing stage, all processes, technology, and roles should be considered, as well as determining the best time to deliver the project and who will be responsible for implementing and measuring the results.

Testing your automation environment – working alongside your IT team to test software, manage any potential errors before implementing anything live.

Enabling continuous improvement – finance leaders need to ensure there are a continuous learning and improvement process within the business.

Receiving feedback from business members and another stakeholder within the automation process and refining the strategy as necessary.

Moving towards automation means CFOs can harness the true potential of their position and ensure they provide a lead within business activities and ensure their organization remains active and competitive within this progressive market.

Hindalco recently automated its financial systems by implementing cloud software, saving time and effort with manual tasks and at the same time, improving both results and security.

Emerging regulatory controls and a progressively competitive business landscape are placing further pressures on financial leaders. Added into the mix is the growth of innovative digital technologies, greatly influencing the rate of development within the market. Being capable of reducing time spend on financial closing with compliance and regulations being met is a significant challenge and a factor that can influence the reputation of a business.

Manufacturing business Hindalco Industries is a fine example of how a business has utilized Oracle cloud to meet these rising challenges. Handling multiple streams of data, combined with completing financial reports in real-time proved very challenging for the business. Integrating multiple reports into a singular version under relatively tight deadlines became a difficult process to manage for Hindalco and is a common issue for other businesses within multiple industries. For Hindalco, many tasks were depending on specific employees, required manual intervention to eliminate any potential errors and required further monitoring and checks from other members of the business.
Hindalco was looking for a solution that would streamline their financial management process and regulatory reports, explains Sunita Menon, Head of Solution Delivery at the business. Financial reporting continues to be one of the most complex and expensive processes. End-to-end reporting involves a number of complicated stages which all have the potential to disrupt the overall flow of the process. Menon explains that Hindalco was looking for a solution that demonstrated a proven case for the business. Oracle EPM Cloud solution was selected as it offered the services that enabled Hindalco to combine finance and IT services together.

The introduction of the new solution began with identifying the underlying problem, selecting the right technology and determining an implementation partner and delivering the solution to meet business expectations. Menon explains that this process involved a combination of design thinking, stakeholder management, training, validation checks, user acceptance testing and the final delivery of the tested product. Data was collected from over 20 locations and was inputted into Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and later combined with the cloud solution.

The benefits of the move to Oracle

The new solution enables simultaneous updates from a select number of points at any time. Users are able to share report segments with the option of implementing review and responsibility settings. The system also includes a number of validation to monitor financial data and any potential errors.

Menon explains that the business now has the ability to assess and deliver multiple versions within a single link to source data. Menon highlights the improvements through greater accuracy, explaining that any opportunity to free up the time of professionals will result in higher levels of accuracy. The business has improved its use of resources and additional time can be spent specifically on analysis, rather than the time-consuming process of collecting data

Host Analytics has confirmed Grant Halloran as their new CEO. The news comes nearly six months after Vector Capital acquired Host Analytics and placed Ron Baden as temporary CEO. Baden has now moved into his previous role as Chief Revenue Officer.

Host Analytics has announced how excited they are to have Halloran as the CEO during their exciting development period. David Fishman, the Chairman of Host Analytics and MD at Vector Capital believes there are considerable opportunities ahead and with Grant’s significant experience in enterprise software combined with years of experience, Fishman believes the business will continue to expand considerably.

Fishman believes Grant is the ideal person to manage Host Analytics as the business intends to develop into a global leader in financial planning and close solutions.

Halloran originally founded Orbis, a specialist SaaS marketing resource management company which was eventually acquired by Infor. Halloran then became the Global VP & GM at Infor before taking up the position of Chief Marketing Officer at Anaplan.

His experience gained at Vector Capital is something that Fishman is hoping will be replicated at Host Analytics. Halloran decided to leave his leading senior role at OmniSci, the analytics platform that has also experienced significant growth. Halloran recently explained that it is an honor to be working as the CEO of Host Analytics, a business that he believes is set for substantial growth, contains a strong customer base and an experienced and talented workforce.

Since being acquired by Vector Capital, the business has focused specifically on expanding its position in the US and International market. Halloran believes there are considerable opportunities out there with finance leaders looking for techniques to be more agile, strategic, and enhance their financial performance. Halloran believes Host Analytics is perfectly equipped with the capabilities to support finance leaders in delivering their goals.

Positive times for Host Analytics

With new leadership, host analytics is expected to continue expanding, particularly with recently published results and continued expansion plans. Whilst there is little details in how Halloran will continue to grow the business, the company is in a good position to take advantage of an industry that has been forecast to exceed $3 billion by 2022.
Host Analytics was named as a leader in the G2 Grid for Corporate Performance Management (CPM) and was recently selected as a leader in the 2019 Dresner Wisdom of Crowds EPM Market Study.

Howard Dresner, the founder, and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services states that Host Analytics has continued to accelerate their position as a market leader within the EPM space. Dresner congratulates Host Analytics for their performance and remaining an industry leader.