Oracle recently announced it has joined the race to acquire the US assets of very popular app TikTok. Microsoft is also in contention, whilst Twitter has been suggested as another interested party.

In response to this news shares in Oracle rose by 2%, however, some analysts believe TikTok wouldn’t be a good fit for Oracle. The Founder and chief investment officer at Joule Financial recently stated that he didn’t understand their intention of purchasing TikTok, suggesting that the interest in the app isn’t a good fit for where their business is going. 

Other analysts, however, believe that TikTok does make sense for Oracle. Industry professional at strategic consultancy the Centre for Innovating the Future believes by integrating TikTok into their servers, Oracle could create new opportunities in new industries.

In the post-pandemic era, many businesses are trying to be innovative and look at ways to reinvent themselves. Within the technology industry, there are clearly risks, but there are also opportunities and Oracle may be looking at TikTok with their own ideas of how they could use the application and are yet to reveal these concepts to the wider market.

The Chinese app is considerably popular among the younger generation. A sale to a US-based business would likely increase its appeal to Americans that may have steered away from the business due to concerns over data privacy.

According to Chinese based technology business ByteDance, TikTok is valued in the region of $95 to $140 billion. If Oracle is to acquire the application it would help the business diversify its portfolio and enhance its market valuation. Analysts believe the acquisition of a high growth business like TikTok would support Oracle in improving its growth rates and increase its total valuation multiple.

Innovative technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning are transforming financial businesses and Big Data sits at the core of these new industries.

With the support of AI, businesses can efficiently assess data for insightful and relevant information in a fraction of the time. AI can identify specific trends and patterns and display this information clearly for businesses to digest. In the financial market, banks have a considerable amount of data related to their customers. Information on specific behaviours enables banks to determine what financial services to offer. Big data can be used effectively to measure investment options and also plays an important role in risk management. Financial products can then be created to effectively fit the requirements of their customers and essentially generate better returns.

As industry professionals point out, even the highest quality of information is not the same as knowledge. Investors make their decisions and act on knowledge, but cannot make decisive actions based simply on the information. Big data has huge potential, but can be rather useless if individuals cannot collect, process and understand the information.

What are the benefits of Big Data in Finance

The rise of digital technology in the finance industry provides a range of benefits to customers. Financial businesses are utilising big data to meet customer expectations and create a wider range of bespoke solutions. Some of the benefits include:

More Customer Satisfaction

Insightful and higher volumes of data mean financial businesses can provide more personalised investment choices. Big data enables quicker and more efficient services, saving vital time for customers.

Improved Security Measures

Security measures like fraud detection and unauthorised access can prevent potential cyberattacks. Financial institutions have security systems to notify customers of any suspicious activity.

New Research Tools

Many financial businesses provide tools to allow in-depth and technical analysis. These tools provide opportunities to predict changes in prices based on historical data trends.

Automated Investment Plans

Applying algorithms to improve returns on investments is becoming more popular. Data systems driven by AI have enabled investors to automate a lot of their investment strategies. While an automated investment cannot necessarily guarantee better results, it is a trend that has attracted several new investors to the industry.

What are the challenges of big data in the finance industry?

While there are many benefits, there are some challenges linked to implementing big data in finance.

Rising costs related to innovation

Big data requires a high volume of infrastructure. The data generated from businesses is stored in warehouses and the costs associated with new servers to store data can spiral quickly. There are also other expenses related to cooling systems and other ongoing maintenance. Financial businesses have to continue paying an ongoing fee to subscribe to big data services but may also be forced to continue paying additional fees related to upgrades.

Unstructured Data

A significant amount of data collected from personal devices is predominantly unstructured and the overall quality of this data can greatly vary. It can be challenging for financial businesses to determine unrelated data points and understand the business value of this data. It can also be equally complicated to understand which data to utilise and which to ignore.

Strict Regulations

Government measures have become stricter in terms of the regulations on big data. Financial companies have been forced to adhere to stricter rulings on collecting information on customers and their behaviours.

NetSuite recently published their latest survey regarding priorities in the finance industry. The results are based on specific information from finance professionals and explore how finance teams have managed during the pandemic. The survey repeated certain themes and questions from the previous report to assess how priorities may have changed in recent months. Some of the key findings are listed below:

Over 40% of respondents said that finance teams were operating at the highest ability, providing all the services their business requires and expects. Over 45% of finance professionals believe the influence and position of the finance department has expanded in recent months. All respondents agreed that spending continues to remain down but suggest that the pandemic has had little impact on expected debt capacity.

The survey showed that just 26% of respondents are looking for the majority, if not all of their finance team to make a return to the office. The findings suggest that some businesses have found the transformation to remote work rather challenging. To some organisations remote work has been difficult and has impacted both productivity and efficiency.

While about half of respondents highlighted culture as a barrier to working from home effectively, the reliance on sending documents to the central office was the top reason. Both of these factors can be solved, particularly the document concern with the right technology in place. Culture, however, is more complicated but is possible.

Investment by organisations continues to remain down, apart from in the IT and Technology sectors. Businesses are still looking for ways to reduce their spend in response to the pandemic. Over 70% of respondents are continuing to identify methods of savings, a big rise since the previous year. A similar rise was noticed in terms of managing the expectations of board members and the CEO, suggesting a possible rise in importance of the finance industry.

Marketing is an interesting area, with businesses approaching the sector in various ways. Over 30% of businesses are interested in increasing their marketing spend, whilst nearly 40% are planning to reduce their investment in marketing. Closer inspection reveals that marketing techniques are changing, with a shift in spend on physical events towards virtual projects. With marketing budgets being reduced for many organisations, business leaders are exploring alternative and more innovative ways of continuing to market and promote their business.

Finance teams are continuing to look at some investments, with nearly 50% viewing new training as a vital area and a further 42% interested in improving their tools and cloud-based services.

The survey also explored the impact of the pandemic on financial processes. A little over three quarters stated that scenario planning has become more complex, and approximately 60% believe that managing cash flow is more challenging than ever. 

One of the most notable highlights of the report is that there continues to be mixed opinions in terms of what approach should be taken in returning to work for finance professionals. In the coming months, there may be more clarity on a best practice for finance teams, but either way, confidence seems to be returning and respondents indicated that they can clearly see success in the coming months.

The former software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform provides energy solutions services, including billing, customer relationship and financial management.

UK-based ENSEK, a specialist provider of software services for energy suppliers has confirmed it has acquired the consultancy and data analytics business NrgFin.

The new deal represents a part of ENSEK’s growth strategy to expand further into other nations, with this specific deal allowing the business to expand further into Europe and increase its growth potential within the UK.

The SaaS platform enables energy providers with a selection of services, including CRM,billing, industry data trends, revenue and financial management solutions. NrgFin, based in Benelux provides finance solutions for a number of energy suppliers and consists of a range of established businesses including Essent, Elegant and Total Gas & Power.

Jon Slade, the CEO of ENSEK explains that the acquisition is a significant and exciting step for the business. Slade explains that the energy retail industry in Belgium and the Netherlands provides many opportunities to connect with the UK market. Slade highlights that they are excited to be working with new partners, integrating their services and enhancing the number of growth opportunities available.

CFO’s are making plans to prepare for a new age of finance transformation – the post-pandemic finance. How has the industry changes over the last two decades?

For many businesses, a post pandemic finance industry involves making a significant move from just focusing on automating vital financial processes. A post-pandemic finance industry requires a more strategic approach, it involves teams and businesses responding in a collective manner, and quickly. 

While traditional corporate performance management services such as Oracle’s Hyperion have supported finance professionals in automating important processes for many years, they aren’t necessarily the perfect tools to support a post-pandemic finance industry. This is largely down to the fragmented structure of these systems and the associated costs with upgrades that result in added pressure on finance teams to manage processes, rather than focus their attention on data, analytics and important decisions that need to be made in a post pandemic finance industry.

While vendors are transitioning towards the cloud, the systems continue to remain relatively fragmented and a number of these applications lack some of the vital capabilities of the traditional on-premises systems.

Which areas to consider in determining if your legacy tools are sufficient for post-pandemic finance. 

• Are the legacy tools used in your business reaching their end of life? 
• Does your finance team need to shift data between various applications to provide actual and variance budget analysis?
• Are upgrades for new releases expensive and potentially disruptive to your business processes?
• Does your business need to use additional modules to support your centralised management processes?

Whilst there are some limitations for newer cloud solutions, Oracle and SAP have confirmed plans to remove support for a number of on-premise applications and are applying more pressure on their customers to shift towards cloud applications. IT professionals and other industry analysts are encouraging finance professionals to explore other alternatives before making the move towards legacy vendor cloud services. Industry experts highlight that there are a number of viable and effective alternatives available with modern infrastructure, new capabilities and the ability to support on-premise and cloud services.

One alternative providers is OneStream Software. OneStream provides a innovative corporate performance management solution, known as the OneStream XF SmartCPM platform. OneStream XF combines and simplifies financial consolidation, planning, reporting and analytics for a number of organisations.

OneStream is the first solution provider that offers corporate standards with the added flexibility for businesses to be capable of reporting and planning at various levels of details without affecting their corporate standards. The core of a SmartCPM solution is the ability to provide multiple solutions for budgets, forecasts and plans, all within a single application. OneStream XF reduces the risk associated with integrations, validations and reconciliation between a number of products, applications and modules.

London based business Melrose Industries PLC focuses in buying and improving underperforming companies. The finance team focuses on a combination of Oracle tools to perform their planning, analysis and forecasting. As the organisation continued to acquire other businesses, it became more challenging to collect and assimilate data. Melrose require a singluar CPM solution that not only is capable of reducing the effort of managing multiple services, but also provide total transparency in terms of data and process changes.

When exploring CPM solutions, the vital requirement for Melrose was having an efficient and agile solution that provided flexibility and was capable of retaining historical data. Implementing OneStream enabled Melrose to manage a single platform that incorporates their reporting requirements, improves analysis and provides complete visibility. 

Melrose explains that OneStream has provided the business with one product that includes everything needed for their reporting requirements. The biggest benefit of using OneStream is that anyone in the extended group, in any location, can use the system. In previous years Melrose has relied on a range of systems, but now all of this has been removed. Melrose now relies solely on OneStream, delivering one singular system of truth that is always available and works.

Big data has proven very useful in supporting epidemic control. In Guiyang, China, teachers are utilising a big data platform to monitor the physical conditions of their students. The province has made considerable efforts to boost the big data industry over the years.

With the impacts of Covid-19, The Guiyang Education Bureau has created an epidemic control big data system which integrated data sets of local schools, enabling the authorities to have a clear representation of the situation in real time. Previous to this system, completing online forms would involve lots of manual effort and create a certain level of delay. The new large-scale data gathering system instantly monitors students and identifies potentially infected individuals.

Real-time information allows health-care workers to create and deliver effective pandemic prevention plans. Recent reports have shown a decline in confirmed cases and the overall spread of the infection in the region has virtually diminished.

Aside from the epidemic control of Covid-19, poverty alleviation is the other core mission of Guiyang. National policy has stated that 2020 is the deadline for eradicating poverty in rural areas and removing regional poverty in China. The pandemic has created various challenges for poverty alleviation, with many businesses and production sites being forced to close due to preventative measures. Nevertheless, the nation is focused on achieving this goal of poverty alleviation.

Guiyang is implementing big data to generate insights and support the movement of socially deprived out of poverty. Certain businesses are utilising data-focused systems to enhance productivity and overall profitability. The resulting benefits of revenue growth have moved more local people out of poverty. Using innovative technology such as IoT devices have improved business efficiency and generated important data to support productivity. Data science creates higher levels of efficiency for businesses and greater revenue for local people.

In the last few years, Guiyang has promoted the implementation of big data into agriculture and supports the deployment of IoT. Moving towards smart agriculture, the government has shown its support towards improving the infrastructure and expanding the talent pool. Recent findings indicate that the disposable income per capita for rural residents is continuing to increase.

Moving into the second half of 2020, the deadline for achieving poverty alleviation is nearing. With poverty continuing to be a focus, China is also tackling the unprecedented challenge of Covid-19. Equipped with big data, regions like Guiyang must be capable of facing two battles involving epidemic control and poverty alleviation.

Businesses with great leaders have the ability to bring out the best in their workers. They are capable of making them productive, happy and more likely to remain with a business for a longer period of time. Businesses that lack this quality in leadership will inevitably experience higher employee turnover, creating higher recruitment and training costs which can accumulate over time.

Businesses today understand the benefits of having a great leadership team. They acknowledge that selecting the best leaders and ensuring they are working in the correct part of the company will generate the highest results. One technique that has become popular for identifying the best leaders is using innovative technology like artificial intelligence and people analytics software.

For years most leaders were trained and established and refined their leadership skills through specific programs. While these programs have been successful, they generally rely on assumptions and instinctive actions in determining promising individuals. Businesses are starting to use technologies like AI and people analytics to ensure these decisions are more accurate. The predictive powers of these technologies are considerable, capable of predicting whether an individual has what it takes to become a leader. An AI system can deliver more information prior to making a final decision and incorporate other sources of data that may be possibly overlooked.

Identifying talent in your employees

Bigger businesses can have thousands of employees and so the process of selecting the right talent can be challenging. With more employees now working from home, identifying those with leadership potential has become even more difficult. This is where AI can play an important role. Artificial intelligence can identify certain employees who have specific leadership traits. AI can enable businesses to maintain a competitive edge by ensuring the right employees lead the organisation. AI can also identify certain areas where workers may need further coaching and support to become stronger leaders. Assessment tests can support AI in identifying certain strengths and weaknesses of individuals and ensure the right programs are assigned to the right employees.

Recognising Skill Gaps

Aside from identifying leaders, AI can support businesses in finding skill gaps across multiple parts of an organisation. Once these gaps have been found, the business can define a personalised coaching program for each employee. 

Intelligent Insights

AI and analytics software generates in-depth insights on employees. The information provided can enable more detailed and productive interactions with employees. 

Improve Productivity and Engagement 

As mentioned earlier, businesses with engaged employees will result in higher levels of productivity. When a business implements AI and analytics to measure employee productivity, it shows a clear sign that performance and growth are important parts of their business, translating into higher engagement and productivity. 

AI and analytics can support existing tools a business uses to develop leaders. These systems can enable businesses to gain more insight into their employees, creating a competitive and more productive company.

For some years there has been a rising demand for data scientists but some industry experts are suggesting that this level of demand may be changing. The pandemic has had a number of impacts on economies worldwide, and as a consequence unemployment rates have increased. Businesses are starting to manage the economic slowdown and how this influences both investments and strategic decisions. One question some industry experts are asking is whether the historical demand for analytics and data science professionals will remain high or possibly slow down. Previous studies have suggested that the number of analytics and data science professionals was expected to rise dramatically over the next few years. In 2019, ‘data scientist’ was ranked as the leading position by LinkedIn in the US based on available job openings, salaries and career progressions opportunities. The considerable rise in data and demand by industry for more information has been highlighted as a key factor in driving this demand for analytical talent.

Studies suggest that as businesses start to create a new way of thinking post-pandemic, there will be a number of key factors that will determine decisions on the level of investment in analytics and data science. Clear return on investment will be one of the core metrics that businesses will closely observe to determine what remains during a period of recession. Businesses or projects that show little or an unclear return on investment will potentially be removed as a cost-saving process.

ROI is a challenging metric for data science as in reality many algorithms are unlikely to be implemented. Some studies suggest that over 80% of big data projects are unsuccessful. A report from McKinsey states that while investment into analytics is rising, many businesses are yet to see a clear ROI as they expected. The challenge is implementing analytics from a small scale project base to a wider business and integrating it in everyday processes.

In some cases, data groups that have shown clear value could thrive. Business leaders will explore analytics and data groups for support during a recession if they have a proven record of adding data-driven value. The level of support for creating a data-focused culture is another important element in determining the level of investment in this industry during a recession. If top-level support has created a data-driven culture then analytics and data will likely form a vital part of the company strategy.

For some leading businesses, the data and analytics side of their activity is vital during an economic downturn. What is critical for data and analytics is being capable of clearly emphasising what value it brings to a business. The leading players in the industry are in this position because of their ability to communicate their value to the wider organisation.

Based on feedback from a number of industry leaders, the clear ROI is inevitably the biggest factor in determining whether businesses will expand or reduce their focus in data science and analytics. For those that have shown a clear, strong and positive ROS, the demand for data and analytics may actually increase during this period.

The latest employment figures do show a gradual decline in new job postings but interestingly, the rate of decline in data science and analytics remains above the market average. In some markets, such as in finance and insurance, new job postings within analytics and data science has actually increased.

Despite the number of challenges and implications of a recession, many industry professionals are confident that data science and analytics will remain a critical part of delivering competitive success for many businesses.

The planned updates announced by Oracle will enable finance teams to become more resilient in challenging times. The pandemic has placed considerable pressure on finance leaders. In order to make businesses more resilient and adaptive, Oracle has launched a series of important updates to the Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning and the Enterprise Performance Management services.

The updates will enable finance leaders to utilise some of the latest technology available, including artificial intelligence, digital assistants and analytics. An additional number of new solutions will also allow certain businesses with a focus on asset-intensive activity a more efficient and quicker process.

Predictive Planning is one of the key updates to the ERP and EPM platforms, enabling businesses to view predictions, forecast and identify selected patterns.

Intelligent Code services will also enhance both the accuracy and efficiency of processing payments by utilising machine learning to intuitively recommend selected account codes. Intelligent

Document Recognition will reduce the time consuming process of document entry, improving the accuracy of the document filing. The system will continue to learn and adapt to understand changes with the business.

Digital Assistant Skills for Time Entry and Projects will enhance the overall process of submitting and assessing timesheets. It is also capable of monitoring project status and identifying certain time-management problems, improving the overall efficiency of a business.

Embedded Incident Management offers intelligent, embedded incident information on workflows that businesses can utilise to perform investigations, deliver actions and monitor incident status. Aside from the mentioned updates, there are two additional new industry solutions in ERP.

Joint Venture Accounting will reduce the possibility of partner disputes, improve the cash flow process and provide clear visibility into the financial performance of joint ventures for certain industries. This is achieved by automating transaction processing and providing role-based services to manage certain exceptions.

The Product-Driven Supply Chain feature, part of the new features released for Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain Management will enable industries to manage their supply chain. This is especially useful for manufacturing and other asset-focused businesses. The new updates and services come together with Oracle providing its Financial Statement Planning and Strategic Modeling features as a free service to all planning customers for the next 12 months.

Slack has confirmed the acquisition of software as a service business Rimeto. The terms of the deal are yet to be announced.

According to CrunchbaseRimeto raised $10 million in venture funding and is focused on delivering a comprehensive employee dictionary for businesses. This enables businesses and associated employees to view employee skills, experience and current projects.

Slack believes the acquisition will support users with feeling more connected, especially as many offices continue to work remotely during the pandemic. Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack explained that both businesses commenced discussions prior to the pandemic.

Butterfield highlights that the advance profile and directory features of Rimeto will be combined directly into the Slack interface and they will also continue to offer Rimeto as a separate product and maintain support with their existing customer base.